'  •iW-- 


A   LAYMAN-*S     STUD 


OF     THE 


IB  L E 


:?<<x-^ 


m'- 


>i;f^?t 


:JK 


'.•p^lii': 


.BS535 


A  LAYMAN'S    STUDY 


OP 


THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 


A  LAYMAN'S  STUDY 


OP 


THE    ENGLISH   BIBLE 


CONSIDERED    IN    ITS 


LITERARY  AND  SECULAR  ASPECT. 


FRANCIS  BO  WEN,  LL.D. 

ALFOKD   PEOFESSOE    OP    PHILOSOPHY   IN    HABVARD    COLLEGE. 


NEW  YORK: 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS. 

1885. 


Copyrjglit,  1885, 
By  FKANCIS  BOWEN. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Electrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


'<^, 


NOV   9    1805  "• 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  Introduction  :  the  Bible  as  an  English  Classic        1 
II.   The  Narratives  in  the  Old  Testament.     ...       19 

III.  The  Parables  of  Our  Lord.  —  The  Gospel  Nar- 

rative       31 

IV.  The  Philosophy  of  the  Bible  .   ' 57 

V.  The  Poetry  of  the  Bible 90 

VI.   The    History    contained    in    the    Bible.  —  The 

Character  and  the  Institutions  of  Moses   .    .116 


A   STUDY   OF   THE    ENGLISH    BIBLE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

introduction:    the    bible    as    an    ENGLISH    CLASSIC. 

What  I  purpose  here  to  consider  is  the  study  of 
the  English  Bible,  regarded  exclusively  in  its  lit- 
erary and  secular  aspect,  and  the  due  place  of  such 
study  in  a  system  of  liberal  education.  Hence  the 
discussion  will  not  be  either  philological  or  theolog- 
ical in  character.  I  shall  have  little  to  say,  except 
in  the  way  of  occasional  reference,  either  about  the 
original  tongues,  whether  the  Hebrew  or  the  Greek, 
in  which  these  books  were  first  written,  or  about 
the  religious  dogmas  w^hich  the  various  churches  of 
Christendom  have  founded  upon  the  interpretation 
of  them.  These  branches  of  the  subject  must  be 
left  to  the  professional  experts,  the  philologists  and 
theologians,  who  have  been  fitted  respectively  for 
their  peculiar  tasks  by  their  special  studies.  But 
it  is  perhaps  unfortunate  for  the  claims  of  the 
Bible  to  universal  attention  and  respect  that  the 


2  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

thorougli  study  of  it  should  have  been  made  over 
almost   entirely   to   these   two    classes    of  experts. 
The  subject  is  interesting  to  others  also,  especially 
to  the  students  of  poetry,  of  English  literature,  of 
history  and  philosophy,  and,  indeed,  of  what  may 
be  called  the  science  of  human    nature.     At  any 
rate,  I  propose  now  to  look  at  the  Scriptures  only 
in  the  ordinary  English  version  of  them,  just  as  if 
they  were  now,  for  the  first  time,  placed  before  us, 
without  any  opinions  previously  formed  respecting 
their  character  and  purport ;  just  as  one  might  first 
enter  upon  the  study  of  Gibbon's  great  historical 
work,  or  attempt  to  ascertain  the  characteristics  of 
the  Elizabethan  age  of  English  literature.     To  ac- 
cept all  the  results  of  such  an  examination  as  is 
here  intended,  it  is  not  necessary  to  belong  to  any 
one  household  of  faith,  or  even  to  be  a  believer  in 
Christianity.      Romanist  or  Protestant,  an  intelli- 
gent pagan,  a  cultivated  agnostic,  even  a  Moham- 
medan, if  he  were  a  man  of  taste  and  education, 
might  accept  gladly,   and  without   prejudice,   any 
statements   which   I   shall   here   have   occasion   to 
make. 

Yet  even  as  thus  limited,  the  subject  is  a  very 
broad  one,  and  might  well  occupy  the  labor  of  a 
lifetime.  For  we  have  first  to  observe  that  the 
title,  "The  Bible,"  —  the  Booh^  in  a  special  and 
eminent  sense,  —  is   a   misnomer  in   one   respect. 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  3 

since  it  is  not  one  work,  but  a  collection  of  many- 
scriptures,  widely  differing  from  each  other  in 
their  subjects  and  characteristics,  and  purporting 
to  have  been  written  respectively  at  very  distant 
periods  of  time.  Hence  the  title  of  the  Latin  Vul- 
gate, Bihlia  Sacra  Vulgatce  Editionis.,  "The  Sa- 
cred Books  in  the  commonly  received  Edition,"  is 
more  precise  and  appropriate  than  their  English 
appellation.  The  earlier  portion  of  the  collection 
contains  thirty-nine  distinct  books,  the  later  part 
twenty-seven  others,  having  but  little  family  like- 
ness to  each  other,  either  in  style  or  mode  of  treat- 
ment, either  in  the  topics  which  they  consider  or 
in  the  ends  which  they  subserve.  Some  are  nar- 
rative in  form,  some  didactic  or  hortator}^  others 
epistolary,  others  still  poetical.  They  contain  le- 
gends, histories,  biographies,  poems,  ethical  and  po- 
litical injunctions,  proverbs  and  parables,  medita- 
tions on  life  and  death  or  what  we  call  '  philosophy,' 
and  what  purport  to  be  revelations  of  the  supernat- 
ural and  of  immortality.  How  far  these  distinct 
works  are  from  being  exclusively  theological  or  re- 
ligious in  character  appears  at  once  from  the  fact 
that,  in  at  least  two  of  them,  the  Book  of  Esther 
and  Solomon's  Song,  the  name  of  God  is  not  once 
mentioned  from  beginning  to  end.  There  is  no 
other  or  better  reason  for  lumping  all  these  dissim- 
ilar writings  together,  and  giving  them  one  name  as 


4  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

'''the  Book,"  than  there  would  be  for  including  in 
a  like  collection,  under  a  similar  distinct  appella- 
tion, works  as  heterogeneous  as  Chaucer's  Canter- 
bury Tales,  the  Paston  Letters,  Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets, Hookers  Ecclesiastical  Polit3%  Holinshed's 
and  Hall's  Chronicles,  Bacon's  Essays,  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost,  and  a  dozen  other  books  taken  at 
random  from  the  Elizabethan  or  Stuart  period. 

This  great  diversity  of  subject  and  treatment  is 
only  what  we  ought  to  expect  when  it  is  further 
considered,  that  the  thirty-nine  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  as  it  is  called,  purport  to  contain  the 
whole  surviving  literature,  down  to  a  period  about 
500  years  before  Christ,  of  one  of  the  oldest  and 
most  remarkable  races  of  men  on  earth,  covering  in 
its  composition  a  space  of  nearly  900  years,  consid- 
erable portions  of  it  being  unquestionably  the  old- 
est literature  in  the  world  which  has  come  down  to 
us  in  any  but  a  merely  fragmentary  state.  Let  me 
go  farther,  and  as  our  present  purpose  is  only  to 
mark  out  a  preliminary  outline  of  the  subject  in 
hand,  let  me  venture  to  make  some  assertions  which 
may  at  first  seem  hazardous,  but  which  will  appear 
amply  substantiated  by  the  evidence  and  considera- 
tions which  will  hereafter  be  adduced.  I  say, 
then,  that  these  books  contain  a  body  of  history, 
poetry,  and  philosophy,  the  study  of  which  has 
done  more  than  any  other  single  cause  to  modify 


TEE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC  5 

the  course  and  happiness  of  thinking  men  on  the 
earth,  and  to  color  and  direct  the  whole  course  of 
modern  civilization.  Human  life  is  governed  and 
made  what  it  is  not  so  much  by  outward  circum- 
stances, differences  of  external  position,  and  mate- 
rial aids  and  appliances,  as  by  the  development  of 
character,  by  the  prevailing  turn  of  passion  and  sen- 
timent, and  by  the  general  current  of  opinion.  Not 
what  we  have,  but  what  we  are,  —  not  our  material 
surroundings,  but  our  ruling  passions  and  habits  of 
thought,  together  with  the  presence  or  absence  of 
a  bridle  on  the  manifestation  of  them,  —  is  what 
shapes  our  lives  and  determines  our  destinies. 
Great  epochs  in  the  history  of  the  modern  civilized 
world,  such  as  the  conversion  of  the  northern  tribes, 
the  growth  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  Church, 
the  establishment  of  the  monastic  orders,  the  Cru- 
sades, the  development  of  the  Scholastic  philosophy, 
the  Reformation,  the  rise  of  Puritanism,  are  all  at- 
tributable more  or  less  directly  to  the  one  moral 
cause  which  we  are  now  considering,  the  study  of 
the  Bible.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  the 
Books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  have  exerted 
more  influence,  whether  for  weal  or  woe,  on  the 
course  of  human  affairs  among  civilized  nations  than 
all  other  books  put  together.  Their  imprint  is  on 
most  of  the  literature,  the  philosophy,  the  legisla- 
tion, and  the  history,  of  the  last  1700  years. 


6  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE, 

Leaving  these  general  considerations,  let  us  now 
come  to  particulars,  and  consider  that  aspect  of  the 
study  of  the  English  Bible  which  makes  it  interesting 
to  the  mere  lover  of  literature.  Look  first  at  the  dic- 
tion, and  weigh  its  merits  regarded  simply  as  a  spec- 
imen of  English  prose.  The  opinion  of  scholars  is 
unanimous  that  its  excellence  in  this  respect  is  un- 
matched ;  English  literature  has  nothing  equal  to  it, 
and  is  indeed  largely  indebted  to  conscious  or  un- 
conscious imitation  of  it  for  many  of  its  best  and 
most  characteristic  qualities.  The  diction  is  re- 
markable for  clearness,  simplicity,  and  strength. 
It  is  as  simple  and  natural  as  the  prattle  of  children 
at  play,  yet  never  lacking  in  grace  and  dignity,  or 
in  variety  and  expressive  force.  Till  our  attention 
is  called  to  it,  we  seldom  notice  what  I  may  call  the 
homeliness  of  the  style,  the  selection  of  short  and 
pithy  Saxon  turns  of  expression,  and  the  wealth  and 
strength  of  idiomatic  phrase.  One  who  should  at- 
tempt to  imitate  it,  would  easily  lapse  into  vulgar 
and  colloquial  language,  or,  in  striving  to  avoid 
this  fault,  into  a  certain  primness  and  stiffness  of 
speech,  which  is  even  worse.  Li  truth,  it  cannot  be 
imitated  ;  to  write  such  prose  as  that  of  our  Com- 
mon Version  is  now  one  of  the  lost  arts.  And  I 
have  not  yet  mentioned  what  is  to  many  persons 
the  peculiar  and  most  striking  charm  of  the  style ; 
that  is,  its  musical  quality,  the  silvery  ring  of  the 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH   CLASSIC.  7 

sentences,  and  the  rich  and  varied  melody  of  its  ca- 
dences whenever  the  sense  comes  to  a  close.  An 
excellent  and  learned  ecclesiastic,  who  went  over 
from  the  English  to  the  Romish  Church  about 
forty  years  ago,  thus  speaks,  after  his  conversion 
to  Romanism,  of  the  charm  of  this  Biblical  lan- 
guage. 

"  Who  will  say  that  the  uncommon  beauty  and  marvel- 
lous English  of  the  Protestant  Bible  is  not  one  of  the 
great  strongholds  of  heresy  in  this  country  ?  It  lives  on 
the  ear  like  a  music  that  can  never  be  forgotten ;  like 
the  sound  of  church  bells  which  the  convert  hardly  knows 
how  he  can  forego.  Its  felicities  seem  often  to  be  almost 
things  rather  than  mere  words.  It  is  part  of  the  national 
mind,  and  the  anchor  of  the  national  seriousness.  .  .  . 
The  memory  of  the  dead  passes  into  it.  The  potent 
traditions  of  childhood  are  stereotyped  in  its  verses.  The 
power  of  all  the  griefs  and  trials  of  a  man  is  hidden  be- 
neath its  words ;  it  is  the  representative  of  his  best  mo- 
ments ;  and  all  that  there  has  been  about  him  of  soft  and 
gentle  and  pure  and  penitent  and  good  speaks  to  him  for- 
ever out  of  his  English  Bible."  —  Faber,  Lives  of  the 
Saints. 

We  are  wont  to  speak  of  our  Common  Version 
as  if  it  were,  in  the  main,  the  work  of  King  James's 
translators,  who  first  published  the  results  of  their 
labors  in  1611.  But  this  is  a  great  mistake.  The 
Version  was  gradually  perfected  by  a  slow  process 


8  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

of  development  whicli  occupied  the  greater  part  of 
a  century.  A  succession  of  eminent  scholars  and 
theologians  labored  one  after  another,  for  more  than 
eighty  years,  to  perfect  the  English  translation  of 
the  Bible,  each  aiming  to  revise  and  improve  the 
work  of  his  predecessors.  William  Tyndale,  the 
martyr,  was  the  first  of  them ;  his  version  of  the 
New  Testament  was  published  in  1525  ;  several 
revised  editions  of  it  appeared  in  the  next  ten 
years ;  but  he  had  not  time  to  finish  his  translation 
of  the  Old  Testament  before  he  was  seized  by 
order  of  the  Emperor,  and  burned  at  the  stake  as  a 
heretic,  in  1536.  Yet  Miles  Coverdale  was  allowed 
to  complete  and  publish  his  own  translation,  which 
appeared  a  year  before  Tyndale's  death,  with  a  ded- 
ication to  King  Henry.  The  Psalms  in  it  are 
those  now  used  in  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of 
the  English  Church.  Coverdale  also  contributed 
largely  to  what  was  called  Cranmer's,  or  "the 
Great  Bible,"  which  appeared  in  1539,  and  in 
which  much  of  Tyndale's  language  was  preserved. 
He  afterwards  went  to  Geneva,  where,  in  company 
with  several  English  exiles,  and  with  the  aid  of 
John  Calvin  and  Theodore  Beza,  he  produced  what 
is  called  the  Geneva  translation,  published  in  1560, 
being  founded  mainly  on  Tyndale's  and  his  own 
previous  labors,  but  with  a  more  careful  compari- 
son with  the  original  texts.     The  so-called  Bishops' 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  9 

Bible,  a  revision  of  "the  Great  Bible,"  appeared 
about  1570 ;  and  the  Roman  Catholic  translation 
from  the  Vulgate,  usually  styled  the  Rheniish  and 
Douay  Version,  was  printed,  the  New  Testament 
in  1572,  and  the  Old  in  1610.  Our  Common  Ver- 
sion, which  dates  from  1611,  is  based  upon  all 
these  previous  translations,  being  intended  to  com- 
bine their  merits  and  improve  upon  them  ;  it  is 
largely  indebted  to  them  for  its  accuracy,  its  fin- 
ish, and  its  phraseology.  It  was  formed  by  fiftj'-- 
four  learned  men,  selected  for  the  work,  who  were 
divided  into  six  committees  ;  and  they  were  spe- 
cially instructed  that  the  Bishops'  Bible  was  "  to  be 
followed,  and  as  little  altered  as  the  original  will 
permit."  The  other  versions  were  to  be  used, 
however,  "when  they  agree  better  with  the  text 
than  the  Bishops'  Bible."  It  is  obvious  that  the 
King  James  Translators  did  not  have  much  more 
liberty  assigned  them  than  has  been  taken  by  the 
so-called  Revisers  in  our  own  day,  who  have  recently 
finished  their  work.  They  were  enjoined  to  build 
upon  the  foundations  that  had  been  already  laid  ; 
and  they  obej^ed  the  injunction,  their  own  labor 
being  chiefly  one  of  selection  and  amendment, 
which  was  admirably  performed.  It  appears  on 
comparison,  that  Tyndale  contributed  most  to  the 
diction  and  phraseology  of  our  Common  Version, 
while  its  accuracy  and  fairness  were  due  to  follow- 


10  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ing  the  lead  of  the  Genevan  and  the  Rhemish  trans- 
lators. If  any  names  were  worthy  to  be  printed 
upon  the  title-page  of  our  English  New  Testament, 
they  should  be  those  of  William  Tyndale  and 
Miles  Coverdale  ;  for  in  the  main  it  is  their  work. 
The  later  "  translators,"  as  they  are  styled,  were 
merely  committees  of  revision. 

Now  the  century  beginning  about  1520,  during 
which  our  English  Bible  thus  gradually  obtained 
its  present  beauty  and  finish,  was  precisely  that  in 
which  our  noble  mother  tongue  completed  its  proc- 
ess of  development  and  attained  its  highest  stage 
of  perfection.  Since  this  period,  there  has  been 
indeed  an  enlargement  of  its  stores,  in  order  to 
keep  pace  with  the  progress  of  science,  invention, 
and  art ;  but  we  witness  no  further  process  of  or- 
ganic growth.  We  see  change,  but  no  further  amend- 
ment ;  rather  a  deterioration.  This  was  the  age 
of  Hooker,  Shakespeare,  and  Bacon ;  of  Spenser, 
Latimer,  and  Raleigh ;  and  it  prepared  the  way 
for  Hobbes  and  Dryden.  It  was  the  golden  age  of 
the  English  drama.  These  are  great  names,  and 
many  passages  in  their  writings  show  a  complete 
mastery  of  the  English  language,  and  form  a  grand 
display  of  its  versatility,  its  sweetness,  and  its 
strength.  But  beside  them  all,  and  above  them  all, 
is  the  prose  of  our  Common  Version.  It  is  more 
sustained  than  any  of  them,  more  uniformly  strong 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  11 

and  melodious  in  its  flow,  reminding  one  of  the 
famous  couplet  of  Denham  on  the  Thames :  — 

*'  Though  deep  yet  clear,  though  gentle  yet  not  dull, 
Strong  without  rage,  without  o'erflowing  full.'* 

And  it  has  largely  contributed  to  the  fixation  of 
the  language  at  this  its  best  estate,  since  the  num- 
ber of  words  in  it  the  meaning  of  which  has  become 
obsolete  in  the  course  of  nearly  three  subsequent 
centuries  is  so  small  that  they  may  almost  be  counted 
on  the  fingers.  True,  the  diction  seems  often  to 
have  a  slightly  archaic  tinge ;  but  this  is  an  ad- 
vantage rather  than  a  fault,  as  it  tends  to  preserve 
the  dignity  and  impress! veness  of  the  style.  We 
no  longer  habitually  use  such  words  and  phrases  as 
howbeit,  spiritually-minded,  heavy-laden,  peradven- 
ture,  handmaiden,  waxed  strong,  day  spring,  wine- 
bibber,  husbandman,  and  the  like  ;  but  they  are 
vigorous  Anglo-Saxon  English,  and  we  are  never 
at  a  loss  how  to  understand  them. 

One  other  work,  the  "  Common  Prayer  "  of  the 
Anglican  Church,  has  a  similar  history,  having 
grown  up  by  successive  revisions  during  the  same 
period,  and  by  the  labor  of  the  same  class  of  per- 
sons, the  clergy  of  the  time,  and  has  therefore 
nearly  equal  merits  of  style.  In  it,  the  translation 
of  the  Te  Deum,  the  Litany,  and  many  of  the  Col- 
lects and  Prayers,  are  noble  specimens  of  English 


12  A  STUDY  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

prose,  a*;  once  simple  and  grand,  varied  and  musi- 
cal. Cranmer  was  its  chief  reviser  and  translator ; 
but  in  other  passages,  his  liking  for  stateliness  of 
phrase,  and  for  a  certain  balanced  dualism  of  ex- 
pression, imitated  from  the  parallelism  of  Hebrew 
poetry,  appears  as  a  mannerism,  and  as  such  is  a 
mark  of  inferiority.  Such  are  the  phrases  "  ac- 
knowledge and  confess,"  "  dissemble  nor  cloak," 
"  assemble  and  meet  together,"  ''  requisite  and 
necessary,"  and  the  like. 

I  will  cite  one  familiar  passage  from  Tyndale's 
version,  what  is  called  the  Magnificat,  Mary's  song 
of  praise  after  the  Annunciation,  to  show  how 
closely  the  translators  of  1611  followed  his  phra- 
seology. His  words  are  here  copied  exactly,  though 
their  sj^elling  and  probably  their  pronunciation  are 
modernized. 

"  And  Mary  said,  My  soul  magnifieth  the  Lord,  and  my 
spirit  rejoiceth  in  God  my  Saviour.  For  he  hath  looked 
on  the  poor  degree  of  his  handmaiden.  Behold  now  from 
henceforth  shall  all  generations  call  me  blessed.  For  he 
that  is  mighty  hath  done  to  me  great  things,  and  blessed 
is  his  name :  and  his  mercy  is  always  on  them  that  fear 
him  throughout  all  generations.  He  hath  showed  strength 
with  his  arm  ;  he  hath  scattered  them  that  are  proud  in 
the  imagination  of  their  hearts.  He  hath  put  down  the 
mighty  from  their  seats,  and  hath  exalted  them  of  low 
degree.     He  hath  filled  the  hungry  with  good  things,  and 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  13 

hath  sent  away  the  rich  empty.  He  hath  remembered 
mercy,  and  hath  holpen  his  servant  Israel ;  even  as  ho 
promised  to  our  fathers,  Abraham  and  to  his  seed  for- 
ever." 

Memory  will  tell  you  how  little  change  this  lan- 
guage has  undergone  in  our  Common  Version.  One 
listens  to  it  as  to  a  familiar  chime  of  the  bells  heard 
at  evening  in  the  distance.  The  Revisers  of  1881 
have  altered  it,  and  not  for  the  better.  For  "  put 
down  the  mighty  from  their  seats,"  they  have  sub- 
stituted "  put  down  princes  from  their  thrones." 
Stilted !  For  "  his  mercy  is  on  them  that  fear  him 
from  generation  to  generation,"  as  it  stands  in  the 
Common  Version,  they  have  put  "his  mercy  is  unto 
generations  and  generations  on  them  that  fear  him." 
Awkward,  and  a  spoiling  of  the  rhythm  !  "  In  re- 
membrance of  his  mercy,  as  he  spake  to  our  fathers, 
to  Abraham  and  to  his  seed  forever,"  they  have 
altered  into  "  that  he  might  remember  mercy,  (as 
he  spake  unto  our  fathers,)  toward  Abraham  and 
his  seed  forever."  Uncouth  and  unEnglish  !  Such 
are  the  consequences  of  intruding  nineteenth  cen- 
tury phraseology  into  the  pure  and  musical  idiom  of 
the  sixteenth  century  !  And  who  will  say  that  the 
meaning  or  the  poetry  of  this  grand  old  psalm  has 
profited  by  the  change  ?  It  should  be  added  that 
the  Revision  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  appeared 
in  1885,  has  been  far  more  successfully  executed. 


14  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

The  alterations  in  it  are  less  numerous  and  impor- 
tant, and  they  follow  more  closely  the  diction  and 
the  spirit  of  the  earlier  translators. 

I  ought  to  cite  specimens  in  justification  of  the 
high  praise  here  awarded  to  the  English  style  of 
the  Bible.  But  one  is  at  a  loss  what  to  choose  out 
of  the  wealth  of  material  at  hand;  and  then,  so 
much  of  the  charm  of  passages  from  the  Scriptures 
is  due  to  associations  going  back  to  one's  childhood, 
and  to  the  intrinsic  power  and  sweetness  of  the 
thought,  the  precept,  or  the  sentiment,  that  it  is 
hard  to  fasten  our  attention  on  the  mere  diction. 
But  in  what  follows,  let  me  ask  the  reader  to  divest 
his  mind,  if  he  can,  from  all  thought  of  the  doctrine 
conveyed,  or  of  the  tenderness  and  pathos  of  the 
sentiment,  and  to  consider  the  felicity  and  the  music 
of  the  words  alone. 

"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart ;  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and 
my  burden  is  light."  —  Matthew  xi.  28-30. 

Again  : 

"  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  prophets, 
and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a 
hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would 
not !     Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate.     For 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  15 

I  say  unto  you,  Ye  shall  not  see  me  henceforth,  till  ye 
shall  say,  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord."  —  Matthew  xxiii.  37-39, 

Once  more : 

"  For  there  is  hope  of  a  tree,  if  it  be  cut  down,  that  it 
will  sprout  again,  and  that  the  tender  branch  thereof  will 
not  cease.  Though  the  root  thereof  wax  old  in  the  earth, 
and  the  stock  thereof  die  in  the  ground;  yet  through  the 
scent  of  water  it  will  bud,  and  bring  forth  boughs  like  a 
plant.  But  man  dieth,  and  wasteth  away  :  yea,  man  giveth 
up  the  ghost,  and  where  is  he  ?  As  the  waters  fail  from 
the  sea,  and  the  flood  decayeth  and  drieth  up :  so  man  lieth 
down  and  riseth  not :  till  the  heavens  be  no  more,  they 
shall  not  awake,  nor  be  raised  out  of  their  sleep."  —  Job 
xiv.  7-12. 

Lastly : 

"  I  will  take  no  bullock  out  of  thy  house, 
Nor  he  goats  out  of  thy  folds. 
For  every  beast  of  the  forest  is  mine, 
And  the  cattle  upon  a  thousand  hills. 
Will  I  eat  the  flesh  of  bulls. 
Or  drink  the  blood  of  goats  ? 
Offer  unto  God  thankso;ivino;; 
And  pay  thy  vows  unto  the  Most  High  : 
And  call  upon  me  in  the  day  of  trouble  : 
I  will  deliver  thee,  and  thou  shalt  glorify  me." 

Psalm  1.  9-15. 

I  may  seem  to  have  labored  this  point  too  much. 
But  what  is  here  said  is  particularly  addressed  to 


16  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

young  students,  since  it  may  be  supposed  tliat  one 
leading  purpose  of  their  education  is  the  formation 
of  a  good  prose  style,  at  once  clear  and  flowing, 
strong  and  pure.  I  hope  to  show  that  the  proper 
study  of  the  Bible  may  be,  and  ought  to  be,  a  means 
of  comprehensive  and  thorough  training,  not  only 
in  theology,  to  which  it  is  but  too  often  exclusively 
devoted,  and  in  philosophy,  poetry,  and  history,  but 
also  in  literature  and  English  style.  In  any  scheme 
of  Universit}^  studies,  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  make 
over  any  one  department  altogether  to  mere  special- 
ists, and  thereby  to  lead  the  mind  of  the  student 
along  one  narrow  track,  strictly  fenced  in  against 
any  excursion  over  the  other  broad  fields  of  human 
culture  which  lie  around  it  on  every  side.  Now 
this  end,  the  formation  of  a  good  prose  style,  cannot 
be  attained  by  precept  and  system,  by  conscious 
effort  or  the  observance  of  fixed  rules.  But  just  as 
a  man's  character  and  conduct  are  mainly  deter- 
mined by  the  company  that  he  keeps,  so  his  modes 
of  utterance  are  silently  fashioned  by  unconscious 
imitation  of  the  models  which  he  has  often  before 
him,  that  is,  by  the  books  which  he  most  familiarly 
reads.  It  is  said  of  Voltaire,  that  he  always  had  a 
copy  of  the  "  Petit  Careme"  of  Massillon  lying  on 
his  writing-table,  to  be  taken  up  during  any  odd 
quarter  of  an  hour,  for  the  sake  of  its  influence  on 
his  style.     The  method  was  good,  though  perhaps 


THE  BIBLE  AS  AN  ENGLISH  CLASSIC.  17 

the  choice  was  not  happy.  I  think  Pascal,  Roche- 
foucauld, or  La  Bruyere  would  have  served  his  pur- 
pose better.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  what  Eng- 
lish models  we  ought  to  select.  Keep  the  Bible,  a 
volume  of  Shakespeare,  and  Lord  Bacon's  Essa3S 
always  within  arm's-reach ;  half  an  hour  devoted 
to  either  of  them  will  be  mere  recreation,  and  will 
never  be  unprofitably  spent.  Only  when  your  minds 
and  memories  have  become  saturated  with  the  prose 
of  our  Common  Version,  with  the  phraseology  of 
Shakespeare,  and  even,  if  one  has  command  of 
French,  with  the  neat  succinctness,  precision,  and 
point  of  Pascal,  will  you  have  mastered  the  elements 
of  a  good  English  style.  Then  only  will  you  have 
a  copious  vocabulary  to  draw  from,  a  rich  store  of 
words  and  phrases  and  a  variety  of  allusions  always 
at  hand,  and  not  be  obliged  painfully  to  ransack  a 
meagre  and  hidebound  diction  in  order  to  set  forth 
your  meaning.  But  as  most  people  nowadays  read 
little  except  the  newspapers  and  ten-cent  novels, 
one  need  not  wonder  that  they  talk  and  write  slang, 
or  adopt  only  a  slipshod,  stilted,  or  uncouth  phrase- 
ology. Coleridge  rightly  says,  in  his  Table-Talk, 
"  intense  study  of  the  Bible  will  keep  any  writer 
from  being  vulgar  in  point  of  style." 

John  Ruskin  is  certainly  the  greatest  master  that 
the  present  century  has  produced  of  pure,  idiomatic, 

vigorous,  and  eloquent  English  prose;  and  as  the 
2 


18  A   STUDY  OF   TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

first  volume  of  his  "  Modern  Painters,"  perhaps 
his  best  work,  appeared  over  forty  years  ago,  when 
he  was  a  recent  "  Graduate  of  Oxford,"  his  style 
was  perfectly  formed  while  he  was  yet  a  young 
man.  How  was  it  formed  ?  In  one  of  his  latest 
writings  he  has  told  us,  that  in  his  childhood,  as  a 
part  of  his  home  education,  his  mother  required 
him  to  commit  to  memory,  and  repeat  to  her,  pas- 
sages from  the  Bible.  A  similar  custom,  as  some 
of  us  old  men  know,  prevailed  here  in  New  Eng- 
land over  half  a  century  ago,  and  I  hope  that  in 
some  families  it  lingers  still.  Ruskin  gives  us  the 
exact  list,  twenty-six  in  number,  of  the  Psalms  and 
Chapters  which  he  thus  learned  by  heart  ;  and  as 
the  selection  was,  in  the  main,  an  excellent  one, 
we  need  not  seek  further  for  the  secret  of  his  ad- 
mirable diction  and  perfect  command  of  English 
phraseology.  In  his  list  are  contained  two  Chapters 
from  the  Pentateuch,  the  15tli  and  20th  of  Exodus ; 
eight  of  the  Psalms,  among  which  are  the  90th,  the 
119th,  and  the  139th;  the  5th,  6th,  and  7th  of 
Matthew,  being  the  whole  Sermon  on  the  Mount; 
and  others. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE    NARRATIVES   IN  THE    OLD  TESTAMENT. 

But  the  books  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian 
Scriptures  have  other  and  higher  characteristics 
than  those  which  concern  merely  the  language  in 
which  they  are  written  ;  and  these  I  proceed  to 
consider.  Among  their  contents  are  a  large  num- 
ber of  narratives,  some  legendary,  some  biographical, 
others  purely  didactic  and  spiritual,  in  purport.  Let 
us  distinguish  these  in  thought,  so  far  as  is  possible, 
from  what  is  history  properly  so  called  on  the  one 
hand,  and  from  poetry  on  the  other.  Perhaps  the 
lines  of  division  here  are  not  clearly  drawn  ;  but  no 
matter.  They  are  visible  enough  for  the  purpose  in 
hand,  which  is  to  regard  this  collection  of  books 
simply  as  a  body  of  literature,  avoiding  all  contro- 
verted matter,  and  putting  aside,  for  the  nonce,  the 
questions  in  theology  and  history  to  which  they 
have  given  rise.  To  children  of  tender  years,  who 
have  been  properly  taught,  the  Bible  is  simply  a 
big  storj^-book,  and  one  of  a  very  fascinating  and 
instructive  character.  Some  of  these  stories  pur- 
port to  be  of  real  personages   and   events,  while 


20  A   STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

others  are  avowedly  fictitious,  being  of  the  nature  of 
parables  or  allegories.  But  the  incidents  narrated, 
the  characters  which  are  introduced,  and  the  con- 
versations which  are  reported  are  of  the  simple  yet 
lively  character  which  belongs  to  the  most  ancient 
literature,  and  which  seems  to  be  the  original  aspect 
of  primeval  man.  The  earliest  profane  historians 
whose  writings  have  come  down  to  us  have  this 
childlike  manner.  Herodotus,  for  instance,  tells 
stories  like  an  old  gossip,  often  with  much  liveliness 
and  dramatic  power,  but  with  less  feeling  and  im- 
pressiveness  than  the  writers  of  the  Pentateuch  and 
the  Books  of  Judges  and  Samuel.  Xenophon  is 
more  studied  and  artificial,  as  belonging  to  a  later 
age  ;  but  especially  in  the  legends  which  he  has 
preserved  or  composed  concerning  the  elder  Cyrus, 
he  has  much  of  the  raciness,  simplicity,  and  naivete 
which  characterize  the  olden  time.  The  story  which 
he  tells  of  the  death  of  Abradates  and  Panthea, 
through  its  unstudied  gracefulness,  its  pathos,  and 
the  minuteness  of  detail  with  which  the  incidents 
and  the  talk  are  reported,  is  altogether  in  the 
ancient  manner,  and  is  inimitably  fine.  But  it  is 
too  long  to  be  cited  here.  As  a  single  and  brief 
specimen  of  the  artless  fashion,  the  graphic  heaping 
together  of  particulars,  and  the  frankness  and  fresh- 
ness with  which  the  oldest  story-tellers  spoke  and 
wrote,  take  these  few  lines  from  the  opening  of  the 


THE  NARRATIVES  IN  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT.       21 

16tli  book  of  the  Iliad ;  —  for  the  great  Homer  is 
only  an  old  story-teller.  I  borrow  Frank  W.  New- 
man's translation,  somewhat  modified,  to  make  it 
conform  more  nearly  to  the  original:  — 

"  Patroclus,  wherefore  weepest  thou,  like  to  an  infant  maiden, 
Who,  tripping  at  her  mother's  side,  and  clinging  to  her  gar- 
ment, 
Imploreth  to  be  lifted  up,  impedes  her  hurried  going. 
And,  to  be  lifted  in  her  arms,  with  many  a  tear  uplookest? 
So  weepest  thou,  Patroclus." 

"  One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole  world 
kin."  We  don't  know  whether  Homer,  who  lived 
about  one  thousand  years  before  Christ,  did  or  did 
not  witness  the  Trojan  war.  But  we  may  be  sure 
that  lie  was  a  lover  of  children  and  had  a  good  wife, 
besides  being  a  shrewd  observer,  and  that  he  often 
had  a  nice  time  of  it  in  a  happy  and  orderly  house- 
hold. If  further  evidence  of  the  fact  is  needed, 
take  the  noted  scene  of  Hector  and  Andromache, 
with  the  young  Astyanax  ;  or  turn  to  the  Odyssey 
for  a  domestic  scene  of  the  Princess  Nausicaa,  with 
her  maidens,  washing  the  linen  at  the  waterside. 

Now  go  back  to  a  period  over  six  hundred  years 
before  Homer  was  born,  and  take  the  story  of 
Joseph  and  his  brethren,  as  told  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis.  It  is  one  of  a  group  of  narratives,  gene- 
alogies, and  traditions  about  the  dealings  of  God 
with   primeval    men,    all   referring  "  more   or    less 


22  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

distinctly  to  the  origin  of  the  Hebrew  race,  and 
indicating  the  development  of  some  of  its  pecul- 
iar institutions,  such  as  circumcision,  and  the  heb- 
domadal division  of  time  on  which  is  founded  the 
Jewish  Sabbath.  This  group  appears  first  to  have 
been  brought  together  and  reduced  to  writing  in 
the  Mosaic  age,  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  and,  I 
doubt  not,  under  the  direction  of  Moses  himself,  as 
one  means  of  reconciling  his  people  to  the  act  of 
leaving  Egypt  and  returning  to  the  land  which  had 
been  the  home  and  the  burial-place  of  their  fore- 
fathers, the  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob. 
The  story  of  Joseph  is  simply  the  traditional  ac- 
count of  the  events  which  first  led  to  the  prolonged 
sojourn  of  the  Israelites  in  a  land  which  was  neither 
their  original  nor  their  destined  home,  but  one  in 
which,  in  their  own  affecting  phrase,  they  were 
strangers  in  a  far  country.  Evidently,  before  it 
was  written  out  in  Genesis,  the  legend  had  often 
been  repeated  orally  in  their  tents,  at  their  camp- 
fires,  and  by  the  mothers  of  the  tribe  in  teaching 
their  children.  For  it  is  essentially  a  family  narra- 
tive, and  we  can  fancy  the  hearts  of  these  mothers 
swelling  within  them  as  they  fondled  their  special 
favorites  among  the  numerous  children,  and  told 
them  about  Joseph,  whom  Jacob,  his  father,  loved 
more  than  all  his  children,  because  he  was  the  son 
of  his  old  age,  and  was  good  and  dutiful ;  and  about 


THE  NARRATIVES  IN  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT.       23 

Benjamin,  who,  as  the  youngest  born,  was  the  pet 
and  darling  of  the  whole  household.  And  the  story 
also  had  a  strong  local  coloring ;  at  that  early  day, 
the  very  dawn  of  the  historical  epoch  of  mankind, 
it  would  have  been  intelligible  only  to  a  people  who 
knew  all  about  Egypt,  and  had  also  heard  much 
about  Canaan,  and  the  long  journey  through  the 
desert  between  these  two  countries.  Apart  from 
the  inevitable  changes  of  text,  the  omissions  and 
interpolations  which  must  have  attended  its  trans- 
mission, mostly  in  the  form  of  successive!}^  tran- 
scribed .  manuscripts,  through  a  period  of  some 
thirty-five  centuries,  I  can  no  more  doubt  the  es- 
sential genuineness  and  authenticity  of  the  story, 
than  I  could  deny  those  qualities,  for  instance, 
to  the  recently  discovered  history  of  Plymouth 
Colony,  by  Governor  Bradford.  It  has  the  true 
ring  of  genuineness ;  it  breathes  the  air  of  Egypt 
and  the  desert  in  the  old,  old  times. 

We  can  easilj^  see  why  the  narrative  was  so  dear 
to  the  people  whose  origin  it  illustrates,  and  who 
so  jealously  watched  over  its  preservation.  More 
than  any  other  people,  the  Hebrews  had  the  in- 
stinct of  nationality,  the  full  pride  of  race.  In 
their  own  eyes,  they  were  Jehovah's  chosen  people, 
with  whose  fathers  the  Deity  made  a  special  cov- 
enant, that  they  should  be  his  people  and  he  should 
be  their  God.     Their  history  illustrates  the  patri- 


24  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

archal  theory  of  ttie  origin  of  a  state  as  the  natural 
expansion  of  a  single  family,  which  successively  is 
developed  into  a  clan,  then  branches  off  into  a  num- 
ber of  clans,  and  finally  becomes  a  nation  like  unto 
the  sands  of  the  sea  for  multitude.  All  the  Israel- 
ites are  lineal  descendants  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  and,  as  compared  with  other  races,  they  are 
of  astonishingly  pure  blood.  The  story  of  Joseph 
and  his  brethren  is  simply  the  account  of  the  de- 
velopment of  this  one  family  into  the  twelve  tribes 
of  Israel.  Their  faith  is,  that  they  have  thus  mul- 
tij^lied  in  the  fulfilment  of  the  promise  of  God  unto 
their  fathers.  And  they  have  clung  to  this  faith 
through  the  long  lapse  of  centuries,  keeping  them- 
selves apart,  and  refusing  intermarriage  with  other 
races.  In  captivity  and  exile,  scattered  abroad 
among  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  persecuted,  im- 
prisoned, burned  at  the  stake,  driven  from  one  coun- 
try into  another,  as  in  our  own  day  from  Germany 
and  Russia  into  the  United  States,  they  are  still 
Jews  of  the  circumcision  and  the  Passover,  Jews 
of  pure  blood.  Other  races  mingle  with  each  other 
like  rivers  having  a  common  outlet,  which  soon  lose 
all  trace  of  their  separate  identity.  Where  now 
are  the  Ionian  or  Attic  Hellenes,  the  Greeks  of  the 
days  of  Pericles,  or  the  Romans  of  Ctesar's  day? 
Where  the  Goths  and  Huns,  who  overran  half  of 
Europe,  or  the  Normans  who  fought  under  William 


TEE  NARRATIVES  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.       25 

the  Conqueror  ?  Lost,  swallowed  up,  in  the  great 
deep  of  the  bastard  races  which  have  succeeded 
them.  But  the  Jews  are  like  a  mighty  river,  which, 
winding  its  way  of  descent  from  the  mountains 
through  thousands  of  miles,  pours  at  last  into  the 
great  ocean  with  so  vast  a  flood  and  rush  of  waters 
that  the  current  repels  the  brine  and  preserves  the 
sweetness  of  its  stream  far  out  to  sea.  Instead  of 
asking  how  the  story  in  Genesis  and  Exodus  could 
be  so  long  preserved,  I  ask  rather  how  by  such  a 
people  could  it  ever  be  forgotten.  For,  to  adopt  the 
fine  remark  of  Pascal,  there  is  a  vast  difference  be- 
tween a  book  which  one  makes  and  throws  among  a 
people,  and  a  book  which  of  itself  makes  a  people. 
We  then  cannot  doubt  that  the  book  is  at  least  as 
old  as  the  people. 

The  story  of  Joseph  possesses  in  a  marked  degree 
all  the  features  w'hich  have  been  noticed  as  belong- 
ing to  the  narrations  which  have  come  down  to  us 
from  the  earliest  times.  And  it  is,  so  to  speak, 
more  completely  worked  out  than  any  other  of  the 
earlier  legends  in  Scripture ;  that  is,  there  are  no 
apparent  gaps  or  obscure  passages  in  it,  while  the 
details  are  so  full,  and  the  personages  so  strongly 
marked  and  admirably  supported,  the  conduct  and 
talk  of  each  being  in  perfect  keeping  with  his  char- 
acter, that  the  narrative  has  an  inimitable  air  of 
verisimilitude.     It  has  all  the  sweetness,  natural- 


26  A   STUDY   OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ness,  and  pathos  which  mark  unmistakably  a  chron- 
icle of  the  primeval  times.  It  is  too  familiarly- 
known  to  all  to  need  here  to  be  analyzed ;  but  I 
ousht  to  select  some  touches  from  it,  in  order  to 
justify  the  high  praise  here  given  to  it  exclusively 
in  its  literary  and  secular  aspect. 

There  is  much  dramatic  vividness  in  the  account 
given  of  the  feelings  of  Joseph  when  first  in  pres- 
ence of  his  brethren  after  their  long  separation,  and 
still  unknown  to  them,  though  he  had  recognized 
them  instantly.  He  assumes  to  speak  roughly  to 
them,  in  order  to  preserve  his  disguise,  while  his 
heart  is  bursting  with  affection  and  anxiety  for  the 
two  members  of  the  family,  who  are  not  in  the 
company,  and  whom  he  most  loves,  as  they  had 
no  part  in  the  horrible  crime  which  the  others 
had  committed  against  him  ;  namely,  his  aged  fa- 
ther and  the  youngest  born,  his  own  mother's  son. 
Hence  the  artifice  through  which  he  succeeds  in 
compelling  them  to  bring  Benjamin  with  them  on 
their  second  visit,  Simeon  meanwhile  being  retained 
as  a  hostage  for  his  coming.  And  when  they  came 
again,  nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  account  of  his 
demeanor,  and  the  air  of  assumed  indifference  and 
mere  courtesy,  with  which  he  questions  them, 
though  he  is  really  in  distressing  susj^ense. 

"  And  he  asked  them  of  their  welfare,  and  said,  Is  your 
father  well,  the  old  man  of  whom  ye  spake,  is  he  yet  alive  ? 


THE  NARRATIVES  IN  THE  OLD   TESTAMENT.       27 

And  they  answered,  Thy  servant  our  father  is  in  good 
health,  he  is  yet  alive." 

His  quick  eye  has  recognized  Benjamin  now  in 
the  troop,  towards  whom  his  heart  is  yearning, 
though  he  must  not  be  recognized  openly  for  fear 
of  discovery. 

"  And  he  said,  Is  this  your  younger  brother,  of  whom 
ye  spake  unto  me  ?  God  be  gracious  unto  thee,  my  son. 
And  Joseph  made  haste ;  for  his  bowels  did  yearn  upon 
his  brother  ;  and  he  sought  where  to  weep  ;  and  he  en- 
tered into  his  chamber  and  wept  there." 

Very  touching  is  the  remonstrance  offered  by  Ju- 
dah,  on  behalf  of  his  brethren,  when  Joseph,  really 
unwilling  to  part  again  from  his  young  brother, 
threatens  to  detain  Benjamin  in  Egypt,  on  a  pre- 
tended charge  of  having  stolen  the  goblet  which 
was  found  in  his  sack. 

"  Now  therefore,"  he  says,  "  when  I  come  to  thy  ser- 
vant my  father,  and  the  lad  be  not  with  us,  seeing  that 
his  life  is  bound  up  in  the  lad's  life,  it  shall  come  to  pass, 
when  he  seeth  that  the  lad  is  not  with  us,  that  he  will 
die  ;  and  thy  servants  shall  bring  down  the  gray  hairs  of 
thy  servant  our  father  to  the  grave.  .  .  .  Now,  therefore, 
I  pray  thee,  let  thy  servant  abide  instead  of  the  lad  a 
bondman  to  my  lord  ;  and  let  the  lad  go  up  with  his 
brethren.  For  how  shall  I  go  up  to  my  father,  and  the 
lad  be  not  with  me  ?  lest  peradventure  I  shall  see  the  evil 
that  shall  come  on  my  father." 


28  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

There  is  great  dignity,  as  well  as  pathos,  in  the 
manner  in  which  Joseph  now  relents,  makes  him- 
self known  to  his  brethren,  and  announces  his  full 
forgiveness  of  the  great  sin  which  they  had  com- 
mitted against  him,  showing  also  how  Jehovah  had 
overruled  it  for  good. 

"  And  he  said,  I  am  Joseph  your  brother,  whom  ye 
sold  into  Egypt.  Now  therefore  be  not  grieved  nor  angry 
with  yourselves,  that  ye  sold  me  hither  ;  for  God  did  send 
me  before  you  to  preserve  life."  Seeing  that  five  years 
still  remain  of  famine,  "  in  the  which  there  shall  nei- 
ther be  earing  nor  harvest,"  "  God  sent  me  before  you  to 
preserve  you  a  posterity  in  the  earth,  and  to  save  your 
lives  by  a  great  deliverance.  So  now  it  was  not  you  that 
sent  me  hither,  but  God." 

Here  the  delicacy  as  well  as  nobleness  of  Joseph's 
speech  and  conduct,  founded  on  his  piety,  are  ad- 
mirably set  forth,  with  an  instinctive  appreciation 
of  what  we  moderns  are  wont  to  call  a  true  gentle- 
man's character.  Let  me  repeat  Coleridge's  re- 
mark, that  earnest  study  of  the  Bible  is  a  sure  safe- 
guard against  vulgarity. 

Thus  far  I  have  commented  on  but  one  of  the 
narratives  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  taking  by 
preference  the  story  of  Joseph  and  his  brethren, 
because  it  is  nearly  the  earliest,  and  most  complete 
in  itself,  and  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  character- 
istic and  attractive.     A  multitude  of  others  invite 


THE  NARRATIVES  IN  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.       29 

and  would  reward  notice,  the  Book  of  Judges,  in 
particular,  being  a  repertory  of  legendary  tales  and 
ballads  or  songs  of  triumph,  all  belonging  to  the  ear- 
lier history  of  the  Israelites  in  the  Promised  Land, 
and  heaped  together  with  little  concern  for  their 
connection  with  each  other,  or  to  filling  the  gaps  so 
as  to  form  a  continuous  record.  Such  are  the  sto- 
ries of  Jael  and  Deborah,  of  Gideon  and  his  tri- 
umph over  the  Midianites,  of  Abimelech,  of  Jeph- 
thah  and  his  daughter,  of  Samson  and  Delilah  and 
the  Philistines.  These  are  not  history,  but  the  im- 
perfect materials  and  data  from  which,  in  combina- 
tion with  other  sources,  history  may  be  drawn. 
They  are  not  religious  records ;  they  do  not  teach 
us  a  theology.  But  they  are  Hebraistic  to  the 
core ;  they  are  built  round  a  nucleus  of  theocratic 
polity ;  and  underlying  them  all  is  a  foundation  of 
spiritual  faith,  of  rooted  belief  in  the  unity  and 
the  government  of  the  eternal  and  invisible  God. 
They  are  national  traditions,  such  as  had  been  re- 
peated for  centuries  in  the  tents  and  at  the  camp- 
fires  of  the  Tribes ;  deeply  tinged  with  national 
pride,  and  exaggerated  through  the  same  feeling 
and  the  natural  love  of  the  marvellous.  Most  of 
them  are  admirably  told,  with  much  energy  and 
fire,  and  as  much  minuteness  of  detail  as  if  the  nar- 
rators of  them  had  actually  witnessed  the  triumphs 
which  they  record.     Through   these  legends  thus 


30  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

mossed  with   hoar    antiquity,   we    catch   indistinct 
glimpses    of    the    heroes    of    the    olden    time,    the 
ancient  Judges  of  Israel, — grand  figures,  looming 
through  the  mist  of  ages,  of  men  who  trusted  in 
God,  and   triumphed    over   their  enemies    because 
Jehovah    fought   with    them.     Looked    at    in    this 
light,  and   regarded    as   objects   of  literary   study, 
they   are    profoundly    interesting   and    instructive. 
But  as    to   defending   the   authenticity  of  the  ac- 
counts in  all  their  marvellous  details,  or  praising 
the  conduct  in  every  respect  of  the  personages  en- 
gaged  in   them,  or   setting  up  their  characters  as 
models  for  imitation,  or  believing  that  some  of  the 
actions  attributed  to  them  were  specially  enjoined 
by  the  Almighty,  or  accepting  the  estimate  of  the 
magnitude  of  the  forces  arrayed  against  each  other 
in  some  of  the  great  battles,  —  I  should  as  soon 
think  of  attempting  to  whitewash  the  reputations 
of  the  officers  in  command  in  some  of  the  incidents 
of  our  recent  Civil  War,  or  to  indorse  the  official 
reports  concerning  them.    On  the  other  hand,  scep- 
ticism must  not  be  carried  too  far.      While  we  may 
doubt  the  return  of   numbers,  both  of   those  who 
fought  and  those  who  fell,  we  are  not  to  deny  that 
a  great  battle  was  fought  at  Antietam,  or  that,  after 
a  siege  not  quite  as  long  as  that  of  Troy,  Richmond 
was  captured.       I  have   not  much  respect  for  the 
arithmetical    computations  and    criticisms   of    the 
Colenso  school. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    PARABLES    OF    OUR    LORD.  THE    GOSPEL    NARRA- 
TIVE. 

Leaving  for  the  present  the  legends  and  stories 
in  the  Old  Testament,  we  turn  to  the  fictitious  nar- 
ratives which  constitute  a  distinctive  feature  of  the 
teachings  of  our  Lord  ;  I  mean  the  Parables.  It  is 
difficult  to  do  justice  to  these  in  thought,  because 
their  very  excellence  has  rendered  them  so  familiar 
that  their  beauty  is  obscured  by  their  triteness,  and 
one  seems  in  treating  of  them  to  trespass  on  the 
limits  of  the  commonplace.  A  theme  may  be  so 
grand  that  even  great  familiarity  with  it,  though 
failing  to  breed  contempt,  yet  does  not  fail  to  gen- 
erate weariness  and  neglect.  Thus,  no  visible  ob- 
ject whatever,  when  viewed  through  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  immensities  of  space  and  the  eternity 
of  duration  and  unchangeableness  which  it  involves, 
is  in  itself  so  beautiful  and  impressive  as  the  starry 
heaven  above  us  at  evening,  especially  when  seen  in 
the  gloriously  clear  atmosphere  which  our  climate 
so  often  gives  us  in  the  summer  and  autumn.  But 
though  the  poet  defiantly  asks  of  such  a  sky, 


32  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

"  Bespangled  with  those  isles  of  light, 
So  wildly,  spiritually,  bright :  — 
Who  ever  looked  upon  them  shining, 
And  turned  to  earth  without  repining,  — 
Nor  wished  for  wings  to  flee  away 
And  mix  with  their  eternal  ray?  "  — 

I  am  afraid  all  of  us  will  be  obliged  to  confess,  that 
we  have  more  frequently  than  not  walked  home  on 
such  a  night  without  casting  a  single  glance  up- 
ward. Just  so  has  it  been  with  those  stars  of  the 
Gospel,  the  Parables  of  our  Lord.  We  have  heard 
so  much  about  them  ever  since  infancy,  in  talks, 
readings,  lectures,  and  sermons,  that  the  mind 
seems  almost  to  recoil  from  the  well-worn  theme. 
A  prejudice  thus  conceived  is  the  more  difficult  to 
be  encountered,  since  it  is  not  merely  an  unfounded 
opinion,  which  is  always  open  to  argument,  but  a 
feeling  or  sentiment,  an  aversion,  which  we  cannot 
away  with,  however  unreasonable  it  may  be  made 
to  appear.  But  this  difficulty  must  be  met,  as  the 
theme  is  a  necessary  portion  of  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  whole  subject. 

Consider,  first,  that  what  is  most  peculiar  and  dis- 
tinctive in  the  form  of  our  Lord's  discourses  to  the 
multitudes  who  heard  him  is  the  use  which  he 
makes  of  parables  to  illustrate  and  enforce  the  spir- 
itual doctrine  that  he  teaches  and  the  precepts  that 
he  enjoins.     In  this  respect,  he  had  no  prototype. 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.  33 

and  in  early  times  he  found  no  imitator.  Not  his 
immediate  disciples,  not  the  great  apostle  to  the 
Gentiles,  none  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  Church, 
seems  even  to  have  essayed  in  this  respect  to  walk 
in  his  steps,  or  to  have  made  his  example  the  pat- 
tern for  their  own  discourse.  Images,  similitudes, 
types,  and  allegories,  indeed,  abound  in  their  writ- 
ings ;  for  many  of  them  had  an  oriental  wealth  of 
imagination,  and  much  subtlety,  ingenuity,  and 
fancy  in  tracing  out  a  resemblance  or  an  analogy 
even  to  its  minutest  details.  But  the  proper  Para- 
ble —  on  the  face  of  it  as  simple  as  a  nursery  tale, 
and  yet  involving  such  a  profundity  of  meaning,  so 
vivid  in  its  presentation  of  truth  and  portraiture  of 
character,  and  so  impressive  in  bringing  the  lesson 
home  to  men's  hearts  and  lives  —  seems  to  me 
unique  in  all  literature.  I  find  no  genuine  speci- 
mens of  it  in  ancient  times,  save  those  which  came 
from  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  But  with  him  it  is  so 
perpetually  recurrent  that  it  seems  the  natural  garb 
of  his  thought  ;  "  and  without  a  parable,"  we  are 
told,  "spake  he  not  unto  them."  Even  his  disci- 
ples wondered  at  this  peculiarity  of  manner,  and 
asked  him,  "  Why  speakest  thou  unto  them  in  par- 
ables ?  "  Of  course,  there  is  another  meaning  of  the 
word  parable^  according  to  which  it  signifies  any 
dark  saying  in  which  some  great  truth  is  involved 
or  dimly  intimated,  when,  for  some  temporary  rea- 


34  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

son,  it  would  be  unfit  to  announce  it  openly.  And 
it  is  to  this  meaning,  as  I  think,  that  the  answer  of 
Jesus  to  the  question  put  by  his  disciples  exclu- 
sively refers,  though  they  evidently  misunderstood 
it  by  making  it  general,  and  thus  wrongly  made  it 
applicable  to  the  majority  of  cases,  in  which  the 
purpose  is  not  to  veil  the  truth,  but  to  set  it  forth 
as  vividly  as  possible,  and,  as  it  were,  to  brand  it  in 
letters  of  fire  upon  the  conscience  and  the  memory. 
I  find  but  one  parable  properly  so  called  in  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  that  is  the  brief 
and  touching  apologue  of  the  one  ewe  lamb,  with 
which  the  prophet  Nathan  rebukes  the  crying  sin 
of  David.  The  lively  fiction  of  the  talking  trees, 
in  the  9th  chapter  of  Judges,  is  not  a  parable,  but 
a  fable,  altogether  in  the  manner  of  Pilpay  and 
JEsop.  And  when,  in  the  grand  old  legend  of 
Balak  and  Balaam,  in  the  Book  of  Numbers,  the 
latter  is  said  to  "  take  up  his  parable,"  the  phrase 
evidently  means  "  began  his  pro]3hetic  song."  It 
is  not  denied  that,  in  some  Rabbinical  writings  of 
uncertain  date,  similitudes  and  iHustrations  may  be 
found  which  are  carried  so  much  into  detail  that 
they  may  be  called  parables  ;  and  in  a  few  cases, 
the  phrases  and  thought  in  these  are  so  like  those 
in  the  Gospels  that  we  must  suspect  their  writers 
of  conscious  imitation  or  23lagiarism.  But  they  are 
all    either    so  feeble  and    insipid,   or    so    strained 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.  35 

and  unnatural,  that  I  find  nothing  in  them  to  de- 
serve attention.  After  the  eighth  or  ninth  century 
of  our  era,  indeed,  both  among  the  Greeks  and  the 
Latins,  attempts  were  made  to  imitate  the  Parables 
of  our  Lord ;  and  some  of  these  attempts  are  pleas- 
ing and  forcible.  But  they  are  immeasurably  infe- 
rior to  their  divine  originals,  which  stand  alone  in 
all  literature,  matchless  alike  in  conception  and 
form. 

Let  us  first  endeavor  to  point  out  the  peculiar 
features  of  a  parable,  whereby  it  is  distinguished 
both  from  the  fable  and  the  proverb.  In  the  fable 
properly  so  called,  plants  or  animals,  sometimes 
even  inorganic  things,  appear  as  personages  in  the 
narrative,  talk  and  act  like  men,  while  the  ethical 
or  spiritual  meaning  would  seem  to  lurk  far  be- 
neath. Here  the  fabulous  or  fictitious  feature  of 
the  illustration  is  put  forward  and  made  prominent, 
the  moral,  or  what  is  called  "  the  improvement  "  of 
the  fable,  really  becoming  more  distinct  and  em- 
phatic, when  man  is  made  to  look  at  a  conceivable 
exemplification  of  it  in  the  lower  orders  of  being, 
and  human  nature  is  thus  taught  to  recognize  its 
imperfection,  folly,  or  sin,  through  seeing  it  carica- 
tured, as  it  were,  by  the  fox,  the  grasshopper,  or 
the  wolf,  by  the  willow  or  the  bramble.  "  Go  to 
the  ant,  thou  sluggard,"  exclaims  king  Solomon  ; 
"  consider  her  ways,  and  be  wise."    But  always  the 


36  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

story  is  put  first,  and  the  lesson  wliich  it  is  to  teach 
comes  afterward,  as  if  by  necessary,  though  not 
avowed,  implication. 

In  the  proverb,  on  the  other  hand,  this  order  is 
reversed  ;  the  precept  or  truth  is  put  first,  or  is 
directly  inculcated,  while  the  image  or  illustration 
follows,  its  function  being  that  of  a  barb  to  the 
hook,  the  truth  being  thereby  made  so  pungent 
that  it  clings  to  the  attention  and  the  memory. 
Thus  Dr.  Franklin,  a  great  master  of  this  homely 
and  popular  wisdom,  says,  "  Poverty  often  deprives 
a  man  of  all  spirit  and  virtue ;  it  is  hard  for  an 
empty  sack  to  stand  upright."  In  the  best  prov- 
erbs, the  illustration  is  so  apt  and  striking,  that 
the  truth  needs  not  to  be  separately  expressed,  but 
forces  its  own  way,  as  it  were,  by  irresistible  im- 
plication. "  There  will  be  sleeping  enough  in  the 
grave,"  as  Poor  Richard  says.  Here  the  thought 
was  anticipated  by  "  the  great  Arnauld,"  who,  when 
he  had  already  completed  eighty  years  of  a  most 
laborious  life,  and  was  implored  by  his  friend  Nicole 
to  take  some  repose,  exclaimed  impatiently,  ''Rest! 
Shall  we  not  have  all  eternity  in  which  to  rest?  " 

The  proper  parable  is  an  imaginary  scene  from 
real  life  vividly  set  forth,  in  order  to  bring  some 
truth  home  to  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men. 
It  is  a  brief  drama,  not  resting,  like  the  fable,  on 
some  extravagant  fiction  as   its   groundwork,  nor 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.  37 

condensed,  like  the  proverb,  into  a  single  pithy- 
phrase  or  striking  image ;  but  dependent  for  its 
effect  on  the  naturalness  and  probability  of  the 
story,  and  on  the  lifelike  manner  in  which  it  is 
told.  Through  a  short  narrative,  or  a  single  famil- 
iar incident  strikingly  depicted,  the  most  abstract 
and  comprehensive  truth  may  be  presented  in  a  con- 
crete form,  and  thus,  as  it  were,  what  would  be  a 
dry  skeleton  is  clothed  with  living  flesh  and  blood. 
Each  of  the  Parables  deserves  study  not  only  in 
reference  to  the  occasion  which  suggested  it  and  to 
the  doctrine  which  it  teaches,  but  also  as  a  revela- 
tion of  the  character  of  him  who  uttered  it,  and  of 
the  general  spirit  and  purpose  of  his  ministry  on 
earth.  Thus,  one  considerable  group  of  them  ap- 
pears inspired  chiefly  by  ineffable  pity  for  mankind 
who  have  wandered  so  far  away  from  the  true  path, 
and  by  the  spirit  of  divine  compassion  which  seeks 
to  reclaim  them  from  the  blindness  of  error  and  the 
misery  consequent  upon  sin.  This  is  the  godlike 
purpose  so  forcibly  expressed  as  the  conclusion  of 
one  of  them,  in  the  solemn  declaration,  "  I  say  unto 
you,  that  likewise  joy  shall  be  in  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and 
nine  just  persons  which  need  no  repentance."  Still 
more  distinctly  and  earnestly  is  this  spirit  of  his 
ministry  announced  in  his  stern  rebuke  of  the  Phar- 
isees, when  they  blamed  him  for  eating  with  pub- 


38  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

licans  and  sinners :  —  "  Go  ye  and  learn  what  that 
meaneth,  *  I  will  have  mercy  and  not  sacrifice  ; '  for 
I  am  not  come  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to 
repentance." 

Observe  now  the  tenderness  of  feeling  and  the  pic- 
turesqueness  of  detail  with  which  this  grand  assur- 
ance is  brought  home  to  the  understanding  and  the 
conviction  of  those  who  heard  him  through  the  brief 
but  beautiful  Parable  of  the  Lost  Sheep.  Let  me 
say,  that  in  studying  this  Parable,  you  should  com- 
bine, as  I  have  attempted  to  do  here,  the  two  inde- 
pendent reports  of  it  given  respectively  by  Matthew 
and  Luke ;  for,  while  agreeing  in  substance  and,  in 
the  main,  in  language,  each  preserves  some  minute 
incident  or  graphic  touch  in  the  narrative  or  the 
comment,  which  is  omitted  in  the  other.  The  ear- 
lier report  is  prefaced  by  repeating  once  again  that 
announcement  of  the  leading  purpose  of  his  mission 
which  Jesus  now  proceeds  to  illustrate  and  enforce. 
"  For  the  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  save  that  which 
was  lost.  How  think  ye  ?  If  a  man  have  a  hun- 
dred sheep,  and  one  of  them  be  gone  astray,  dotli 
he  not  leave  the  ninety  and  nine,  and  goeth  into  the 
mountains,  or  into  the  wilderness,  and  seeketh  that 
which  is  gone  astray?  And  if  so  be  that  he  find  it, 
verily  I  say  unto  you,  he  rejoiceth  more  of  that  07ie 
than  of  the  ninety  and  nine,  which  went  not  astray. 
And  when  he  hath  found  it,  he  layeth  it  on  his 


THE  PARABLES   OF  OUR  LORD.  39 

shoulders,  rejoicing.  And  when  he  cometh  home, 
he  calleth  together  his  friends  and  neighbours,  say- 
ing unto  them.  Rejoice  with  me ;  for  I  have  found 
my  sheep  which  was  lost.  Even  so  it  is  not  the 
will  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  that  one 
of  these  little  ones  should  perish." 

And  here  let  me  apologize  for  the  treatment  to 
which  I  am  now  subjecting  the  narratives  in  the 
Bible,  including  even  those  uttered  by  our  Lord,  b}?^ 
again  remarking  that  I  am  not  a  clergyman  endeav- 
oring to  preach  a  sermon  (though  I  may  seem  to 
come  perilously  near  to  it),  but  am  merely  a  lay- 
man and  a  teacher,  seeking  only,  as  far  as  it  may 
be  done  reverently  and  with  an  honest  purpose,  to 
set  forth  the  literary  merits  of  the  English  Bible, 
especially  those  most  deserving  study  and  imita- 
tion by  persons  who  are  seeking  what  University 
men  proudly  call  a  classical  and  liberal  education. 
I  am  attempting  to  do  for  this  Book  just  what 
other  writers,  with  greater  learning  and  success, 
have  attempted  to  do  for  the  poems  of  Homer  and 
the  drama  of  ^Eschylus  and  Sophocles.  With  any 
other  than  such  an  end  in  view,  I  should  be  justly 
chargeable  with  unspeakable  folly  and  impertinence 
in  thus  presuming,  through  a  critical  examination, 
to  set  forth  what  may  be  called  the  external  char- 
acteristics of  the  discourses  of  our  Lord,  or  their 
merely  literary  merits. 


40  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Going  back  to  the  particular  passage  just  cited, 
observe  how  some  incidents  in  it,  as  in  most  of  the 
other  Parables,  have  so  vivid  a  local  coloring  that 
they  strongly  suggest  the  circumstances  and  the 
scene  which  were  before  the  eyes  of  Jesus  and  his 
audience  when  it  was  uttered.  Life  in  Palestine, 
as  in  most  other  hot  countries  in  the  East,  was 
mainly  spent  out  of  doors,  and  the  chief  occupations 
of  the  people  were  agriculture  and  tending  flocks 
and  herds.  It  is  evident  from  the  Gospel  record, 
that  during  his  whole  ministry  our  Lord  taught  and 
lived  principally  in  the  oj^en  air.  Lideed,  there 
was  another  reason  why  he  should  do  so.  He  had 
no  home ;  and  at  times,  we  know,  this  fact  and  his 
hearers'  frequent  want  of  sympathy  with  him  gave 
him  a  sense  of  loneliness  in  his  work.  There  is 
deep  pathos  in  the  remark  which  fell  from  him  al- 
most involuntarily,  when  an  ardent  proselyte  ex- 
claimed to  him,  "  Master,  I  will  follow  thee  whither- 
soever thou  goest."  The  sad  answer  is  returned, 
not  as  a  complaint,  but  as  a  warning :  — "  Foxes 
have  holes,  and  birds  of  the  air  have  nests ;  but  the 
Son  of  Man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head."  Even 
an  upper  room  had  to  be  borrowed  in  which  the 
little  company  were  to  celebrate  what  was  to  be 
the  Last  Supper.  Thus  living  and  teaching,  face  to 
face,  with  outward  nature,  we  can  understand  why 
so  frequently  in  our  Lord's  discourses  lessons  are 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.  41 

drawn  from  the  lilies  of  the  field  and  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  from  the  sower  and  his  seed,  the  vineyard, 
the  barren  fig  tree,  the  shepherd  and  his  flock. 
Each  of  these  objects,  as  they  came  successively 
into  view  during  their  wanderings  is  pointed  out  by 
gesture,  and  made  to  enforce  the  doctrine  already 
in  hand,  or  to  suggest  some  new  moral  or  spiritual 
truth.  Thus  we  can  easily  imagine  the  surround- 
ings amid  which  the  parable  just  commented  upon 
was  first  spoken  ;  —  an  opening  among  the  hills  of 
Palestine  expanding  into  a  range  of  pastoral  coun- 
try, with  a  flock  of  sheep  in  the  foreground,  seem- 
ingly for  a  while  without  a  shepherd ;  but  in  the 
distance,  just  issuing  from  a  mountain  pass,  the 
shepherd  is  seen  bearing  a  sick  or  tired  sheep  on 
his  shoulders,  and  hastening  back  to  his  flock. 
Jesus  points  to  him,  and  makes  the  familiar  scene 
illustrate  and  enforce  the  great  truth  which  he  is 
never  weary  of  teaching. 

The  same  eagerness  of  divine  compassion  to 
reclaim  the  fallen,  the  same  encouragement  to  re- 
pentance, shines  through  several  of  the  other  par- 
ables ;  as  in  that  of  the  Two  Debtors,  the  Friend 
at  Midnight,  the  Lost  Piece  of  Money,  the  La- 
borers in  the  Vineyard,  where  even  those  who  come 
at  the  eleventh  hour  are  welcomed,  and  especially 
in  what  seems  to  me  the  most  beautiful  and  affect- 
ing of  them  all,  the  Prodigal  Son.     Here,  the  ful- 


42  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ness  of  effect  is  produced  throngli  the  number  of 
incidents  and  characters,  the  skill  with  which  these 
are  grouped  or  contrasted  with  each  other,  the  deep 
feeling  which  pervades  the  whole,  and  the  dra- 
matic force  and  liveliness  with  which  the  whole 
story  is  conceived  and  told.  Merely  as  a  literary 
study,  I  know  of  nothing  finer  in  all  literature,  the 
language  in  which  the  narrative  is  presented  in 
our  Common  Version  being  luckily"  an  adequate 
and  graceful  garb  for  every  feature  of  the  thought. 
Observe  how  the  selfish  and  arrogant  character  of 
the  Younger  Son  is  marked  at  the  outset  in  his 
imperious  demand,  "  Father,  give  me  the  portion 
of  goods  that  falleth  to  me."  There  was  no  legal 
ground  for  such  a  claim,  but  the  loving  father  at 
once  assents ;  the  reckless  and  unfeeling  son  then 
grasps  together  all  that  he  has,  and  goes  to  a  dis- 
tant place,  where  he  can  indulge  his  taste  for  riot 
and  debauchery  without  reading  in  the  eyes  of  all 
who  had  known  him  a  stern  censure  of  his  conduct. 
Guilt  is  shamefaced,  and  instinctively  seeks  a  hid- 
ing place,  even  when  it  has  no  immediate  cause  for 
dread.  But  the  punishment  is  swift  to  come.  Far 
from  friends,  without  resource,  and  pinched  by  hun- 
ger, he  is  obliged  to  accept  the  most  degrading 
form  of  menial  service,  and  even  to  fill  his  belly 
with  the  husks  that  the  swine  did  eat.  Remorse 
visits  him,  and  wrings  from  him  at  last  the  agoniz- 


THE  PARABLES  OF  OUR  LORD.  43 

ing  resolve,  "I  will  arise   and  go  to  my  father,  and 
will   say  unto  him,  Father,  I  have  sinned  against 
heaven,  and  before  thee,  and  am  no  more  w^orthy 
to  be    called    thy  son  ;    make   me    as    one   of    thy 
hired  servants."     The  passionate  force  of  this  lan- 
guage  shows   that   the    measure  of   repentance  at 
length  is  full ;  and  the  touching  account  of  his  wel- 
come home  and  entire  pardon  follows.     "  But  when 
he  was  yet  a  great  way  off,  his  father  saw  him,  and 
had  compassion,  and  ran,  and  fell  on  his  neck,  and 
kissed  him."     But  the  lesson  would  still  be  incom- 
plete if  without  mention  of  the  jealous  sullenness, 
the  hard  and  ungracious  remonstrance,  of  the  Older 
Son ;  for  this  brings  out   still    more    forcibly    the 
patience  which  cannot  be  wearied,  the  tenderness 
which  knows  no  bounds,  the  infinite   pity,   of  the 
Father.     How  gentle  is  his   reproof  of  the  ingrati- 
tude and  resentment  of  his  first-born  !     "  Son,  thou 
art  ever  with  me,  and    all  that  I   have  is  thine." 
And  then  the  exultation  of  his  heart  at  the  return 
of  the  prodigal    breaks   out  again  into  the  sort  of 
triumphant  song  with  which  the  parable  ends.    "  It 
was  meet  that  we  should  make  merry,  and  be  glad ; 
for  this  thy  brother  was  dead,  and  is  alive  again  ; 
and  was  lost,  and  is  found."     It  is  a  mistake  to  re- 
gard the  story  merely  as  an  encouragement  for  the 
sinner    to    repent ;    it    is    also    the    most  beautiful 
picture  ever  revealed  to    the  world  of  the  loving 
fatherhood  of  God. 


44  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Let  me  in  conclusion  of  this  portion  of  my  sub- 
ject, in  respect  botli  to  the  two  parables  which  I 
have  tried  to  analyze,  and  to  the  others  upon  which 
I  now  have  not  time  to  dwell,  ask  the  reader  to 
consider  how  deeply  their  imagery  and  phrase- 
ology, during  these  many  centuries,  have  imprinted 
themselves  on  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  all 
Christendom  ;  how  thev  have  filled  all  minds  with 
trains  of  pleasant  and  tender  associations,  which 
the  slightest  touch  at  any  moment  is  enough 
to  awaken  ;  how  widely  and  intimately  they  are 
worked  into  the  art,  the  eloquence,  and  the  poetry 
of  all  modern  times.  A  mere  enumeration  of  their 
titles  —  the  Good  Samaritan,  the  Pearl  of  Great 
Price,  the  Talents,  the  Sower,  the  ten  Virgins,  five 
of  whom  were  wise  and  five  were  foolish,  the  Rich 
Man  and  Lazarus,  the  Unmerciful  Servant,  the 
Pharisee  and  the  Publican  —  is  enough  to  call 
back  many  of  the  happiest  memories  of  our  child- 
hood, and  to  strengthen  the  better  resolutions  of 
our  riper  years.  Dispute  as  you  may  about  the 
inspiration  of  other  portions  of  the  Bible  ;  there 
can  be  no  question  that  he  who  uttered  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  and  the  Parables  spake  as  never 
man  spake,  and  that  the  message  which  he  brought 
was  one  of  inestimable  importance  for  the  salva- 
tion of  mankind.  "  How  knoweth  this  man  letters, 
having  never  learned  ?  "     Consider  for  a  moment 


THE   GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  45 

the  time  and  the  place  of  his  ministry,  and  the 
people  to  whom  he  spoke  ;  and  then  say  whether 
to  speak  such  lessons  then  and  there,  and  to  the 
countless  millions  who  have  heard  them  since,  was 
not  as  great  a  miracle  even  as  raising  Lazarus  from 
the  dead. 

Besides  the  Parables  and  the  other  discourses  and 
conversations  of  our  Lord,  we  find  in  the  Gospels 
four  brief  and  artless  narratives  of  the  principal 
incidents  in  his  life  and  ministry,  beginning  with 
his  nativity,  and  ending  with  his  crucifixion  and 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  The  first  three  of 
them  —  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  as  they  are  called 
—  tell  what  is  essentially  the  same  story  ;  they 
agree  with  each  other  very  perfectly  in  the  record 
both  of  what  he  spake  and  of  what  he  did  and  suf- 
fered, with  no  greater  differences  or  discrepancies 
than  are  to  be  expected  from  three  independent 
accounts  of  the  same  life.  They  are  independent, 
since  no  one  of  them  makes  any  direct  reference  to 
either  of  the  other  two,  and  each  has  some  charac- 
teristics of  its  own,  and  reports  some  events  and 
sayings,  or  adds  some  touches  of  description  and 
phraseology,  not  to  be  found  elsewhere.  Except  a 
cursory  allusion  in  the  proem  to  Luke's  Gospel,  that 
others  had  arranged  an  orderly  account  (whether 
by  dictation,  or  preaching,  or  in  writing,  is  not  men- 
tioned) of  what  we  have  been  told  by  eye-witnesses 


46  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

and  ministers  of  the  word,  each  Evangelist  seems 
to  write  as  if  his  own  record  was  the  only  one. 

But  the  Fourth  Gospel  has  some  strongly  marked 
traits  distinguishing  it  from  the  others  ;  it  describes 
many  events  of  which  they  make  no  mention,  and 
reports  long  discourses  in  respect  to  which  they  are 
entirely  silent.  Moreover,  these  discourses  preserved 
only  in  John's  Gospel,  while  their  general  tone, 
their  spirit  and  tendency,  are  not  unlike  the  words 
of  Jesus  recorded  by  the  first  three  Evangelists, 
are  more  figurative,  mystical,  and  abstruse  ;  they  are 
harder  to  be  understood.  Harmonizing  in  spirit, 
they  seem  to  offer  a  new  aspect  and  a  subsequent 
chapter  of  the  same  character  and  life.  These  pecul- 
iarities may  at  least  partially  be  explained  by  the 
later  period  at  which  this  Book  was  written,  and  by 
the  strongly  marked  temperament  and  intellect  of 
its  author,  by  which  in  his  old  age  his  recollections 
of  his  Lord  and  Master  were  deeply  colored.  The 
first  Epistle  of  John  exhibits  the  same  character- 
istics as  the  Gospel  which  bears  his  name  ;  it  is 
equally  refined,  mystical,  and  tender;  equally  im- 
passioned in  setting  forth  God's  love  to  man,  and 
the  consequent  duty  of  men  to  love  one  another. 
This  was  the  chief  lesson  which  his  affectionate  and 
somewhat  dreamy  disposition  had  imbibed  from  in- 
timate personal  intercourse  with  Jesus,  from  lis- 
tening to  the  words  which  he  spake,  and  witnessing 


THE  GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  47 

the  wonders  that  he  did.  It  was  the  doctrine  of 
the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
the  doctrine  which  breathes  throughout  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  and  the  Parables  of  the  Lost  Sheep, 
the  Good  Samaritan,  the  Prodigal  Son,  and  the 
Separation  of  the  Sheep  from  the  Goats.  And 
when,  in  extreme  old  age,  in  a  distant  city  of  Asia 
Minor,  he  undertook  for  the  first  time  to  dictate  or 
write  the  Gospel  which  bears  his  name,  or  one  of 
his  hearers  wrote  it  for  him  as  a  summary  of  the 
discourses  which  he  had  preached  so  often  and  so 
long,  what  wonder  that  his  recollection  of  the  very 
words  used  by  our  Lord  should  have  been  inextri- 
cably mixed  up  with  his  own  somewhat  mystical 
exposition  and  paraphrase  of  them,  which  had  been 
the  burden  of  his  instructions  to  his  flock  during 
the  more  than  fifty  years  which  had  elapsed  since 
the  crucifixion.  The  spirit  of  the  discourses  so  re- 
ported, and  the  great  truths  taught  in  them,  are 
always  those  of  Jesus  ;  the  words  and  the  bold  fig- 
ures of  speech,  as  it  seems  to  me,  are  often  those  of 
John  alone. 

According  to  the  best  evidence  now  attainable, 
no  one  of  the  three  Synoptics  was  written  till  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century  had  passed  after  the 
death  of  Jesus.  Down  at  least  to  A.  D.  61,  Jewish 
and  Gentile  converts  to  the  Church  owed  all  their 
knowledge  of  the  life  and  the  sayings  of  Christ  to 


48  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

the  preaching  of  the  twelve  Apostles,  and  probably 
of  many  other  eye-witnesses  and  hearers  of  the  word 
in  Galilee  and  Jerusalem  ;  for  these  things  were 
"  not  done  in  a  corner."  During  all  this  time  they 
had  no  written  word  and  they  needed  none ;  for 
they  were  encompassed  with  a  cloud  of  witnesses 
who  told  them  of  what  they  had  both  seen  and 
heard,  of  what  had  occurred  during  their  lifetime, 
perhaps  in  their  own  neighborhood,  and  thereby 
preached  unto  them  Jesus  and  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead.  This  period  of  the  Gospel  delivered 
orally  and  not  by  writing  was  the  time  of  the  most 
rapid  growth  and  diffusion  of  the  Church,  branches 
of  it  being  instituted  at  Antioch,  Damascus, 
Ephesus,  Corinth,  Rome,  and  many  other  cities  of 
many  lands.  The  multitude  of  believers  increased 
daily  at  Jerusalem  and  throughout  Asia  Minor, 
Greece,  and  Italy,  under  the  preaching  of  Paul  and 
his  companions  and  coadjutors.  About  half  of 
Paul's  Epistles  were  then  written,  and  the  earliest 
account  that  we  possess  of  the  institution  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  is  contained  in  his  first  letter  to  the 
Corinthians.  His  version  of  this  memorable  event 
agrees  wonderfully,  both  in  the  spirit  and  the  letter, 
with  the  corresponding  accounts  in  the  first  three 
Gospels,  though  of  course  he  wrote  by  hearsay  from 
the  other  Apostles  ;  and  this  shows  the  attention 
that  was  paid  to  verbal  exactness  in   the  spoken 


THE   GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  49 

word  through  which  exclusively  the  early  Church 
was  founded.  Of  this  early  period  we  can  piece 
together  a  tolerably  full  history  from  the  rather 
broken  and  desultory  record  of  it  In  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles,  and  from  numerous  allusions  and  indica- 
tions in  the  Epistles.  The  Twelve  appear  to  have 
acted  in  concert,  and  generally  with  great  harmony 
both  in  doctrine  and  conduct,  holding  conferences 
with  each  other  whenever  points  of  difference 
arose. 

Towards  the  close  of  this  period  came  the  terrible 
Neronian  persecution,  of  which  we  have  a  minute 
account  from  the  Pagan  historian,  Tacitus,  who 
wrote  on  the  spot  concerning  what,  though  then  a 
young  child,  he  may  actually  have  witnessed.  His 
recital  is  further  confirmed  by  another  Pagan  his- 
torian, "  the  diligent  and  accurate  Suetonius,"  who 
was  born  but  a  few  years  after  the  Christians  at 
Rome  were  subjected  to  this  fiery  trial.  As  our 
own  learned  historian.  Gibbon,  whose  bias  was  cer- 
tainly to  discredit  the  narrative  if  he  had  been  able 
to  do  so,  frankly  acknowledges  that  "  the  most 
sceptical  criticism  is  obliged  to  respect  the  truth  of 
this  extraordinary  fact,  and  the  integrity  of  this 
celebrated  passage  of  Tacitus ; "  and  since  the 
strong  prejudice  of  Tacitus  himself  against  the 
Christian  belief  is  conspicuous  enough  in  the  ac- 
count, thus  unintentionally  adding  to  the  weight  of 
4 


60  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

his  testimony  in  favor  of  those  who  then  held  and 
openly  maintained  that  belief,  I  will  here  insert  the 
whole  narrative,  borrowing  Gibbon's  translation  of 
it,  which  is  both  elegant  and  faithfuL  The  pretext 
for  the  persecution  originated  in  a  terrible  conflagra- 
tion at  Rome,  by  which  more  than  half  of  the  city 
was  reduced  to  ashes.  To  divert  the  popular  sus- 
picion that  Nero  himself  had  set  Rome  on  fire,  and 
had  chanted  in  mockery  the  fall  of  Troy  while  it 
was  burning,  "  the  emperor  resolved  to  substitute 
in  his  own  place  some  fictitious  criminals." 

"With  this  view  (continues  Tacitus),  he  inflicted  the 
most  exquisite  tortures  on  those  men,  who,  under  the 
vulgar  appellation  of  Christians,  were  already  branded 
with  deserved  infamy.  They  derived  their  name  and 
origin  from  Christ,  who,  in  the  reign  of  Tiberius,  had 
suffered  death  by  the  sentence  of  the  procurator,  Pontius 
Pilate.  For  a  while  this  dire  superstition  was  checked  ; 
but  it  again  burst  forth,  and  not  only  sjiread  itself  over 
Judea,  the  first  seat  of  this  mischievous  sect,  but  was 
even  introduced  into  Rome,  the  common  asylum  which 
receives  and  protects  whatever  is  impure,  whatever  is 
atrocious.  The  confessions  of  those  who  were  seized 
discovered  a  great  multitude  of  their  accomplices,  and 
they  were  all  convicted,  not  so  much  for  the  crime  of 
setting  fire  to  the  city,  as  for  their  hatred  of  human  kind. 
They  died  in  torments,  and  their  torments  were  embit- 
tered by  insult  and  derision.  Some  were  nailed  on 
crosses ;    others    sewn  up   in    the   skins   of  wild  beasts, 


THE  GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  61 

and  exposed  to  the  fury  of  dogs  ;  others  again,  smeared 
over  with  combustible  materials,  were  used  as  torches 
to  illuminate  the  darkness  of  the  night.  The  gardens 
of  Nero  were  destined  for  the  melancholy  spectacle, 
which  was  accompanied  with  a  horse  race,  and  honored 
with  the  presence  of  the  emperor,  who  mingled  with  the 
populace  in  the  dress  and  attitude  of  a  charioteer. 
The  guilt  of  the  Christians  deserved  indeed  the  most 
exemplary  punishment ;  but  the  public  abhorrence  was 
changed  into  commiseration,  from  the  opinion  that  those 
unhappy  wretches  were  sacrificed,  not  so  much  to  the 
public  welfare  as  to  the  cruelty  of  a  jealous  tyrant." 

Even  Gibbon  is  impressed  with  the  force  of  the 
contrast  when  he  reminds  his  readers,  that  these 
gardens  and  circus  of  Nero  on  the  Vatican  hill  are 
now  the  site  of  a  Christian  temple  whose  magnifi- 
cence mocks  the  ancient  glories  of  the  Roman  capi- 
tol,  —  a  temple  erected  by  sovereign  pontiffs  who 
have  extended  their  claims  to  spiritual  dominion 
throughout  the  civilized  world. 

This  early  period  of  an  unwritten  Gospel  natu- 
rally came  to  a  close  when  the  generation  of  those 
who  had  been  eye-witnesses  and  hearers  of  Jesus 
was  rapidly  dying  out,  and  when  the  extension  of 
the  Christian  faith  to  distant  lands  had  created  a 
need  of  some  permanent  means  of  preserving  and 
diffusing  their  testimony  and  instructions.  The 
four  Gospels  as  we  now  possess  them  appear  to  be 


52  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

brief  and  simple  records  of  the  teachings  of  the 
Apostles.  It  is  not  certain  that  each  of  them  was 
entirely  written  by  the  person  whose  name  it  bears, 
though  it  undoubtedly  contains  the  substance  of 
what  one  Apostle,  perhaps  of  what  several  Apostles, 
had  preached,  of  that  to  which  they  had  borne  wit- 
ness, during  many  years.  The  headings  of  the  man- 
uscripts, "  According  to  Matthew,"  "  According  to 
John,"  etc.,  merely  signify  that  the  story  of  Jesus  is 
therein  told  according  to  the  version  of  it  which  had 
been  so  often  repeated  by  that  Apostle.  Mark  was 
not  an  attendant  on  Jesus  Christ  during  his  minis- 
try, but  appears  to  have  been  an  intimate  friend 
and  companion  of  Peter,  who,  in  his  first  Epistle, 
affectionately  calls  him  his  son.  There  has  been  a 
constant  tradition  in  the  Church,  vouched  by  the 
earliest  authors,  that  he  was  only  the  amanuensis  or 
interpreter  of  Peter,  who  either  dictated  this  Gospel 
to  him,  or  supplied  the  materials  for  it  in  the  numer- 
ous discourses  to  which  his  friend  had  listened.  In 
the  proem  to  the  third  Gospel,  we  have  Luke's  di- 
rect assertion  that  he  wrote  in  view  of  the  declara- 
tions made  by  many  others  respecting  "  those  things 
which  are  most  surely  believed  among  us  ;  "  he  does 
not  even  imply  that  he  was  himself  an  eye-witness 
of  what  he  narrates,  but  only  that  he  had  had 
"  perfect  understanding  of  all  things  from  the  very 
first ;  "  that   is,   that  he  had  been  thoroughly  in- 


THE   GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  63 

structed  in  them  by  those  who  were  "  eye-witnesses 
and  ministers  of  the  word." 

The  four  Gospels  as  we  now  possess  them  seem  to 
be  brief  and  imperfect  transcripts  from  that  original 
oral  testimony  of  the  companions  and  disciples  of 
Jesus  to  the  frequent  repetition  of  which  the  earli- 
est converts  to  Christianity  had  listened  for  nearly 
thirty  years,  and  which  was  the  sole  foundation  of 
their  faith.  Each  separate  transcript  is  imperfect, 
because  either  the  writer  of  it,  or  the  Apostle  whose 
testimony  it  records,  had  some  special  purpose, 
taste,  or  principle  of  selection  which  made  certain 
portions  of  the  narrative  more  interesting  to  him 
than  the  parts  which  he  omitted.  Matthew  re- 
ports by  preference  the  sayings  and  discourses  of 
our  Lord,  giving  but  a  brief  and  hurried  account 
of  the  outward  events  in  his  ministry,  except  of  its 
beginning  and  its  close.  Mark,  on  the  other  hand, 
is  minute  and  full  in  the  narration  of  events,  often 
adding  little  incidents  and  touches  of  description 
which  are  wanting  elsewhere,  and  which  make  his 
statements  seem  more  lively  and  truthful ;  but  his 
report  of  what  Jesus  said  is  very  concise,  and  some- 
times appears  incomplete.  Matthew's  Gospel  was 
primarily  intended  for  the  Jews,  and  gives  in  great 
detail  the  circumstances  and  speeches,  especially  the 
cases  of  apparent  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  which 
would  naturally  be  most  interesting  to  that  people. 


54  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Again,  Matthew  and  Mark  are  evidently  simple 
and  unlearned  men,  who  furnish  a  plain  and  unvar- 
nished account  of  what  seemed  to  them  most  inter- 
esting in  the  ministry  of  Christ.  But  Luke  was 
certainly  a  person  of  considerable  literary  taste 
and  culture,  and  wrote  with  some  special  reference 
to  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  because  he  was  long  a 
travelling  companion  of  Paid  and  Barnabas  in  their 
mission  to  the  Gentiles.  The  Jewish  and  Messi- 
anic element  is  not  brought  forward  so  promi- 
nently in  his  Gospel  as  in  its  two  predecessors.  All 
three  of  the  Synoptics  dwell  at  length  upon  the 
ministry  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  and  at  a  distance  from 
Jerusalem ;  while  John,  who  wrote  at  least  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  after  them,  with  full  knowledge  of 
their  contents,  and  with  an  evident  purpose  to  sup- 
plement their  accounts  by  preserving  passages  in  the 
life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  which  they  had  omitted, 
confines  his  report  in  the  main  to  what  took  place 
in  Judea. 

From  the  view  here  taken  of  the  origin  of  the 
Gospels,  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  authors 
of  them,  though  writing  without  concert  with  each 
other,  and  except  in  the  case  of  John,  without  any 
knowledge  of  what  the  others  had  already  written, 
should  frequently  adopt  the  same  language  in  their 
several  reports.  The  words  and  phrases  which 
they  employ  in  corresponding  passages  are  some- 


THE   GOSPEL  NARRATIVE.  55 

times  identical,  and  often  strikingly  similar.  Be- 
cause it  is  so  evident  that  there  was  no  concerted 
action  between  the  Evangelists,  these  frequent 
cases  of  verbal  agreement  have  greatly  puzzled  the 
commentators.  I  find  in  them  nothing  surprising. 
Each  gives  an  independent  report  of  a  common 
original,  —  of  that  oral  Gospel,  that  original  testi- 
mony of  the  Apostles  and  other  eye-witnesses,  which 
had  been  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  the 
sole  nutriment,  the  only  means  of  edification,  of  the 
primitive  Church.  Through  frequent  repetition, 
the  very  words  and  phrases  of  that  primitive  story 
had  become  stereotyped  in  the  hearts  and  memories 
of  the  listeners  who  became  the  early  converts  to 
Christ.  Especially  in  reporting  the  precepts,  con- 
versations, and  discourses  of  Jesus,  this  verbal  co- 
incidence is  natural,  and  therefore  is  frequent  and 
manifest.  In  this  case,  the  very  words  '  are  hal- 
lowed, and  great  attention  was  naturally  paid  to 
the  exact  preservation  of  them.  We  cannot  doubt 
that  most  of  the  phraseology  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  Parables  was  as  familiarly  known 
to  the  primitive  Church  before  as  after  our  present 
Gospels  were  written. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  account  here  given  tends 
strongly  to  confirm  the  genuineness  and  authenticity 
of  the  whole  Gospel  narrative  ;  since  it  appears  that 
this  narrative  contains  the  testimony  not  merely  of 
the  four  Evangelists  whose  names  it  bears,  but  of 


56  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

the  whole  body  of  the  disciples,  the  hearers  and 
eye-witnesses,  of  our  Lord's  ministry  on  earth.     In 
fact,  it  contains  the  evidence  of  all  the  contempora- 
ries of  Jesus,  both  in  Galilee  and  at  Jerusalem,  who 
had  listened  to  his  discourses  and  beheld  the  won- 
ders that  he  did,  and  who  constituted  or  taught  his 
Church  during  the  first  generation  ;  for  the  original 
testimony,  the   oral   Gospel,  must   have  been   fre- 
quently preached  in  their  hearing,  and  they  would 
have   been   sure   to  detect  and   discredit   misstate- 
ments or  unfounded  additions  to  the  story.     Nay, 
even   the  multitude  of  those  who  saw  and  heard, 
but  did  not  believe,  —  the  sceptical  Sadducees,  the 
persecuting  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  —  may  be  said 
to  bear  testimony  indirectly  in  his  favor ;  for  they 
were   eager   to  calumniate,  to  contradict  and  dis- 
prove ;  and  what  escaped  or  vanquished  their  irri- 
tated watchfulness  and  scrutiny,  their  jealousy  and 
hate,  must  be  true.     Take,  for  instance,  the  mocking 
and  shouting  crowd  who  were  present  at  his  trial 
before  Caiaphas  and  Pilate,  when  "  all  the  disciples 
forsook  him  and  fled;"  many  of  this  crowd  must 
subsequently  have   followed   him   to   Calvary,   and 
there  witnessed  the  crucifixion  ;    and  how  prompt 
they  would  have  been  to  detect  and  expose,  either 
in  the  oral  Gospel,  which  was  preached  to  their  con- 
temporaries, or  in  the  written  narratives  by  which 
this  was  succeeded,  any  statements  which  were  ex- 
aggerated or  false. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

It  might  seem  that  the  next  properly  succeeding 
portion  of  my  topic  would  be  the  poetry  of  the  Bi- 
ble. But  I  find  that  both  the  poetry  and  the  his- 
tory in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  are  so  thoroughly 
under  woven  and  colored  by  what  I  have  been 
obliged,  through  the  want  of  a  better  term,  to  call 
their  '  philosophy,'  that  some  consideration  of  this 
last  must  precede,  before  any  full  comment  upon 
the  two  former  would  be  intelligible.  Let  us  there- 
fore try  first  to  understand  the  meaning  of  this 
much  abused  word,  and  thus  perhaps  to  find  an  ex- 
planation of  what  is  most  peculiar  in  the  character 
and  the  writings  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

The  proper  function  of  philosophy  is  to  determine 
accurately  the  being,  the  nature,  and  the  mutual 
relations  of  the  three  great  objects  of  human 
thought,  —  namely,  the  Universe,  Man,  and  God. 
This  is  Kant's  definition  of  it,  and  I  know  not  that 
a  better  one  has  ever  been  offered.  Thus  under- 
stood, philosophy  is  not  science,  and  is  not  religion ; 
but  it  is  the  foundation  on  which  alone  both  science 


58  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

and  religion  must  be  built.  That  foundation  con- 
sists of  those  primitive  and  fundamental  truths  upon 
which  the  whole  fabric  of  our  knowledge  rests,  and 
by  which  it  is  regulated ;  it  is  the  aggregate  of 
first  principles,  which  constitute  the  essence  of  the 
human  mind,  and  determine  the  whole  course  and 
tendency  of  human  thought.  According  to  some, 
these  principles  are  authoritative  because  they  are 
innate ;  they  are  born  with  us,  and  must  be  ac- 
cepted as  such,  because  nothing  lies  behind  them, 
through  which  they  could  either  be  proved  or  re- 
futed. Now  the  Hebrews  virtually  teach  the  same 
doctrine  when  they  declare  that  these  primary 
truths  are  a  revelation  from  God.  They  profess 
with  Elihu  in  the  Book  of  Job,  "  Behold  there  is  a 
spirit  in  man,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
giveth  him  understanding."  To  accept  these  truths 
is  for  them  an  act  of  religious  faith  ;  and  in  this 
sense,  certainly,  their  philosophy  and  their  theology 
are  one.  Hence  we  have  first  to  ascertain  the  rela- 
tion of  their  sacred  books,  especially  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, which  is  in  the  highest  sense  their  "  Book  of 
the  Law,"  to  this  supposed  revelation  of  divine 
truth  ;  and  this  question  may  be  most  conveniently 
considered  here  in  respect  to  the  whole  body  of  the 
Scriptures.  In  what  sense,  then,  and  to  what  ex- 
tent, does  the  Bible  purport  to  be  a  revelation  from 
God? 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  59 

I  answer,  first,  that,  strictly  speaking,  it  does  not 
even  claim  to  be  a  revelation  in  itself,  but  only  to 
contain  the  record  of  several  revelations.  This  is 
evident  from  the  fact  already  mentioned,  that  the 
Old  Testament  includes  the  whole  body  of  Hebrew 
literature  down  to  a  comparatively  recent  period. 
As  such,  it  is  a  miscellaneous  aggregate  of  historical 
documents,  of  various  forms  of  poetry,  of  hortatory 
and  didactic  discourses,  which  have  often  no  other 
or  higher  claim  to  be  divinely  inspired  than  the  cor- 
responding portions  of  the  English  or  French  liter- 
ature of  modern  times.  As  already  mentioned,  we 
find  in  it  two  Books,  Esther  and  Solomon's  Song, 
in  neither  of  which  is  the  name  of  God  once  men- 
tioned from  beginning  to  end,  and  which  do  not  even 
profess  to  be  an  exposition  either  of  moral  or  relig- 
ious truth.  ''Search  the  Scriptures,"  says  our 
Lord  ;  "for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have  eternal  life; 
and  they  are  they  which  testify  of  me ; "  that  is, 
5'^ou  must  search  in  order  to  find  in  them  either  the 
law  or  the  testimony.  But  search  and  ye  will  find 
both ;  for  the  Bible  does  purport  to  contain  a  rec- 
ord, though  a  broken  and  imperfect  one,  of  the 
word  of  God  as  made  known  unto  man  in  three 
successive  and  distinct  revelations.  The  earliest  of 
these  is  the  patriarchal  or  primitive  revelation,  the 
record  of  which  is  whollv  contained  in  the  Book  of 
Genesis.     It  was  the  faith  of  Abraham  and  the 


60  A   STUDY   OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

other  patriarchs,  men  who  walked  with  God,  to 
whom  he  made  known  his  will,  and  with  whom  he 
entered  into  a  covenant,  in  which  his  favor  was 
conditioned  upon  their  obedience  to  his  law.  This 
primeval  revelation  was  not  abrogated,  but  con- 
firmed and  enlarged,  and  made  the  foundation  of 
the  special  polity  of  the  Jews,  in  the  second  grand 
announcement  of  the  law,  which  was  made  by  Moses 
in  the  wilderness.  Under  this  Mosaic  dispensation 
the  believing  Jews  continne  to  this  day.  In  the 
New  Testament,  we  find  a  record  of  the  third  and 
far  the  most  complete  and  adequate  revelation  of 
God  to  man,  based  as  before  on  what  had  preceded 
it,  which  it  does  not  supersede,  but  sanctions  and 
reaffirms  in  all  its  essential  features,  while  sup- 
plementing them  with  new  and  higher  truth. 
Christianity  is  related  to  Judaism  as  the  splendor 
of  the  noonday  sun  is  to  the  early  twilight.  "  Think 
not,"  its  author  exclaims,  "that  I  am  come  to  de- 
stroy the  law  or  the  prophets :  I  am  not  come  to 
destroy  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you, 
until  heaven  and  earth  pass  away,  one  jot  or  one 
tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be 
fulfilled." 

Now  these  fundamental  truths,  which  the  Bible 
assumes  to  have  been  first  made  known  to  the 
world  by  primeval  revelation,  which  were  adopted 
and  built  upon  by  the  later  and  more  special  mani- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  61 

festations  and  disclosures  of  God's  will  and  purpose, 
and  are  still  imprinted  as  birthmarks  upon  the 
hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  constitute  what  I 
have  ventured  to  call  the  '  philosophy '  both  of  the 
Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures.  I  shall  endeavor 
hereafter  to  show  more  particularly  what  they  are, 
and  to  show  what  are  their  relations  to  each  other, 
and  to  the  various  other  doctrines  which  have  been 
set  forth  as  systems  of  philosophy  either  in  ancient 
or  modern  times. 

Meanwhile,  let  me  call  attention  for  a  moment 
to  the  general  fact  here  taken  for  granted,  that  we 
find  in  the  Book  of  Genesis,  and  indeed  throughout 
the  Bible,  clear  and  indisputable  indications  that 
there  was,  and  is,  a  primeval  revelation  of  God's 
truth  to  man,  and  to  the  bearing  of  this  fact  upon 
some  theories  broached  in  our  own  day  respecting 
the  primitive  state  of  man  on  earth  and  the  origin 
of  his  civilization.  The  theory  of  the  evolutionists, 
as  you  know,  is  that  man  is  the  sou  of  a  monkey ; 
the  philosophy  of  the  Bible  teaches  throughout  that 
he  is  a  child  of  God.  The  former  make  out  a  sup- 
posititious history  of  what  they  suppose  to  be  the 
several  stages  of  unassisted  progress  from  bar- 
barism to  civilization,  and  rashly  conclude  that 
man  actually  has  risen  by  his  own  efforts,  merely 
because  they  see  no  reason  why  he  might  not  so 
rise  under  favorable   circumstances.      But  accord- 


62  A  STUDY   OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ing  to  the  account  in  Genesis,  man  h2i?>  fallen  from 
a  former  state  of  innocence  and  happiness  through 
his  own  fault  in  weakly  yielding  to  temptation,  and 
so  plunging  into  corruption  and  wickedness.  Ac- 
cording to  the  one  doctrine,  man  has  steadily  risen 
without  external  aid,  by  a  process  of  necessary  de- 
velopment, from  an  organization  and  a  condition 
identical  with  the  organization  and  the  condition 
of  the  brutes,  to  the  heights  of  civilization,  refine- 
ment, and  religion  now  occupied  by  the  most 
favored  races.  Against  this  hj^pothesis,  for  it  is 
nothing  more,  we  cite  the  objection  urged  by  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  and  confirmed  by  all  history  and 
observation,  that  mere  savages  "  never  did,  and 
never  could,  raise  themselves,  unaided,  into  a 
higher  condition."  In  support  of  the  opposite  doc- 
trine, that  savagery  has  arisen  through  degradation 
from  a  former  happier  state,  we  cite  the  undeniable 
fact,  that  eastern  Europe  and  western  and  central 
Asia  are  strown  with  the  wrecks  of  empires  .and 
civilizations  that  have  perished  ;  and  that  most  of 
the  barbarous  races  which  now  exist  afford  evidence 
through  traditions,  or  the  possession  of  ingenious 
tools  and  implements  which  they  are  evidently  in- 
competent to  invent,  or  through  other  manifest 
external  indications,  that  their  progenitors  were 
vastly  wiser  and  more  cultivated  than  they.  Even 
our  North  American  Indians  were  preceded  by  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  63 

mound-builders,   a   comparatively  intelligent  race. 
The   native  Mexicans  and   Peruvians,    whom    the 
Spaniards  found  here,  possessed  some  relics  of  the 
comparatively  advanced  civilization  of  the  ancient 
nations  from   whom  they    sprang.      Still    further : 
the   two   exclusively   human    endowments   of   lan- 
guage and  the  use  of  fire  prove  conclusively  that 
man  was  originally  taught  by   God.     They  could 
not  have  been  invented  except  by  a  highly  civilized 
people ;  for  without  them,  even  a  beginning  of  civ- 
ilization would  be  obviously  impossible,  and  man, 
if  he  was  a  brute  to  begin  with,  must  always  have 
remained  a   brute.     The   divine   origin  of   one  of 
them   is  indicated  in  the   beautiful    m3^th  of   the 
Greeks,  that    Prometheus   stole   fire  from  heaveh. 
And  of  language,  as   soon  as  we  perceive  that  it 
does  not  consist  merely  in  giving  names  to  things, 
but  that  it  is  an   organic  structure,   marvellously 
complex  and  intricate,  founded  on  a  philosophical 
analysis  of  the  elements  of   human  thought,  may 
we  not  well  say,  that  it  could  no  more  have  been  a 
human  invention  than  is  the  anatomical  structure 
of  the  human   bod}^  but  that  in  both  cases  the  in- 
ventor and  fashioner  was  divine  ?     That  mere  sav- 
ages,   as   yet    hardly  -raised    above    their    kindred 
brutes,  and  unaided  by  a  divine  instinct  speciall}'^ 
implanted  in  them  for  the  purpose,  could  have  in- 
vented both  language  and  the  use  of  fire,  or  could 


64  A  STUDY  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

have  taken  the  first  step  towards  civilization  with- 
out the  aid  of  both,  is  a  doctrine  which  can  be  en- 
tertained only  by  those  who  can  believe  in  a  chance 
development  of  all  things  out  of  mud. 

In  what  sense,  and  to  what  extent,  these  two 
momentous  agencies,  which  first  made  human  civili- 
zation possible,  together  with  those  primitive  and 
innate  truths  and  injunctions  which  form  the 
groundwork  of  man's  moral  and  spiritual  nature, 
are  to  be  regarded  as  special  revelations  from  a 
superhuman  source  of  wisdom  and  power,  may  be 
learned  from  Kant's  exposition  of  the  functions  of 
conscience  and  the  absolute  character  of  the  moral 
law.  The  '  Categorical  Imperative,'  which  is  his 
phrase  for  the  voice  of  conscience,  is  the  expression, 
not  of  any  general  and  abstract  truth,  but  of  an  ab- 
solute and  universal  '  Command,'  which  assumes  to 
regulate  man's  whole  inner  being  and  outward  con- 
duct through  governing  all  his  desires,  volitions, 
and  aims.  It  is  a  '  Categorical '  command,  that  is,  a 
law  of  inherent  and  unconditional  obligation,  over- 
riding all  considerations  of  prudence,  personal  af- 
fection, or  general  utility,  and  asserting  its  own 
supreme  authority  over  all  other  precepts  and  in- 
junctions whatsoever.  Putting  aside  the  consider- 
ation of  external  things,  the  authority  thus  made 
known  to  us  by  internal  revelation  erects  its  throne 
in  the  soul  of  man,  and  judges,  not  the  outward 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  66 

act,  but  the  motives  and  intentions  which  lead  to 
it  and  solely  constitute  its  moral  character.  Com- 
pliance with  the  dictates  of  this  internal  monitor  is 
the  only  Absolute  Good  made  known  to  man  ;  that 
is,  a  good  will,  dictated  solely  by  reverence  for  the 
Moral  Law,  irrespective  of  any  outward  conse- 
quences, is  good  in  and  for  itself  alone,  and  not  for 
what  it  produces,  not  for  its  utilit}^  not  through  its 
fitness  for  -auj  higher  end,  for  there  is  no  higher 
end.  It  is  therefore  to  be  prized  infinitely  higher 
than  that  which  gratifies  any  desire,  higher  even 
than  the  satisfaction  of  all  our  desires  taken  to- 
gether. All  other  goods  are  merely  relative ;  that 
is,  the  attainment  of  them  is  to  be  sacrificed  with- 
out hesitation  whenever  they  come  in  conflict  with 
the  Moral  Law.  Every  other  form  of  law,  whether 
human  or  divine,  whether  it  is  announced  as  the 
law  of  tlie  land  or  as  the  law  of  God,  is  binding 
upon  man  only  so  far  as  it  is  sanctioned  and  en- 
forced by  this  higher  law  within  the  breast.  The 
action  is  not  right  because  God  commands  it,  but 
God  commands  it  because  it  is  right. 

Now  I  say  that  the  existence  of  this  "  Categorical 
Imperative,"  this  absolute  injunction  of  the  Moral 
Law  as  supreme  in  authority  and  universal  in  ob- 
ligation, irrespective  of  any  outward  consequences 
whatsoever,  is  a  fact  which  could   not  have  been 

discovered  by  the  cognitive  faculties  of  man  in  their 
5 


66  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ordinary  and  unaided  mode  of  operation,  but  must 
have  been  first  made  known,  like  the  structure  of 
language  and  the  uses  of  fire,  by  what  may  be 
called  a  divine  instinct  or  a  special  revelation.  If 
known  to  have  been  first  announced  t)y*  an  audible 
voice  from  heaven,  under  circumstances  as  impres- 
sive as  those  which,  according  to  the  Jewish  scrip- 
ture, attended  the  communication  of  the  law  at 
Sinai,  its  immediate  divine  origin  would  be  univer- 
sally admitted.  And  if,  instead  of  a  trumpet  call 
from  above  accompanied  by  the  earthquake  and  the 
fire,  the  will  of  God  comes  to  man  as  "  a  still  small 
voice  "  from  within  the  mind,  constantly  repeated, 
and  making  known  to  him  his  duty  on  all  occasions, 
shall  we  say  that  its  divine  origin  and  authority  are 
any  the  less  obvious  ? 

But  I  did  not  intend  to  discuss  at  length  this 
subject  of  a  primitive  revelation  to  mankind,  but 
only  to  point  it  out  as  one  of  many  important  prob- 
lems the  thorough  investigation  of  which  may  be 
greatly  aided  by  attentive  study  of  the  philosophy 
of  the  Bible. 

We  have  next  to  enumerate  and  consider  sepa- 
rately those  primitive  and  fundamental  truths  re- 
specting the  universe,  man,  and  God,  and  their 
relations  to  each  other,  which  underlie  these  three 
revelations,  and  constitute  what  I  have  called  the 
philosophy   both   of    the    Hebrew   and    Christian 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  67 

Scriptures.  The  first  of  them  was  grandly  an- 
nounced in  the  solemn  declaration  by  Moses, 
"  Hear,  O  Israel,  the  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord." 
It  was  repeated  in  the  first  law  of  the  Decalogue, 
''  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me ;  "  or 
more  clearly,  according  to  the  reading  in  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  "  no  other  gods  but  me."  This  great  truth, 
the  unity  of  God,  is  the  first  peculiar  feature  of  the 
philosophy  of  the  Bible.  It  was  not  first  made 
known  by  Moses,  but  appears  from  the  account  in 
Genesis  to  have  been  equally  the  undoubted  faith 
of  Abraham  and  the  other  patriarchs ;  and  it  is  as- 
sumed, or  taken  for  granted,  through  the  whole  his- 
tory and  all  the  literature  of  the  Jews.  It  has  been 
their  distinctive  national  faith  during  the  whole 
period,  about  3500  years,  of  their  existence  as  a 
separate  and  peculiar  people.  What  were  the  con- 
dition and  the  belief  of  the  other  nations  of  the 
earth,  even  those  who  had  the  most  culture  and 
refinement,  during  the  first  half  of  this  long  period  ? 
Throughout  the  night  of  ages  that  preceded  modern 
civilization,  polytheism  or  fetichism  was  the  prevail- 
ing faith  of  mankind,  as  it  still  is  of  those  tribes 
and  races  upon  whom  the  light  of  Christianity  has 
not  dawned.  The  classic  nations  of  antiquity 
erected  altars  and  temples  to  that  crowd  of  coarse, 
vindictive,  and  licentious  gods  and  goddesses  whom 
all  the  glories  of  Grecian  poetry  and  art  could  not 


68  A  STUDY  OF   TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

ennoble,  nor  all  the  refinements  of  modern  specula- 
tion allegorize  into  decency.  Egypt  bowed  down 
before  its  deified  dogs,  cats,  and  bulls.  Assyria 
worshipped  its  winged  and  human-headed  lions,  its 
sphinxes,  and  its  monsters  with  the  body  and  arms 
of  a  man  united  with  the  head  of  an  eagle  or  vul- 
ture, and  with  the  tail  of  a  dragon  or  fish.  The 
Magians  worshipped  fire,  or  divided  their  homage 
between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  which  are  but  syn- 
on^ans  for  the  good  Deity  and  the  Evil  One.  In 
India,  the  dreamy  and  meditative  spirit  of  the  peo- 
ple forged  monstrous  schemes  of  theology  and  cos- 
mogony which  Hume  fitly  characterized  as  "  the 
playful  whimsies  of  monkeys  in  human  shape," 
and  which  Southey  has  vainly  tried  to  elevate  into 
poetry  in  the  "  Curse  of  Kehama." 

In  this  long  and  dreary  night,  one  race  alone  — 
and  one  b}^  no  means  the  most  distinguished  for 
art,  learning,  and  refinement  —  upheld  the  torch 
of  a  spiritual  faith  and  a  belief  in  the  one  true 
God.  The  Hebrew  theology  appears  in  those  re- 
mote ages,  amid  the  otherwise  universal  preva- 
lence of  the  grossest  idolatry,  as  a  miraculous  light 
"streaking  the  darkness  radiantl3\"  1  do  not  need 
here  to  insist  upon  anything  in  the  literature  or  the 
history  of  this  wonderful  people  which  has  been 
called  into  doubt  by  the  subtle  questionings  of 
modern   scepticism.      I  throw   overboard    for   the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  69 

nonce  to  the  unbeliever  the  Book  of  Genesis  and 
all  the  contested  points  in  the  history  of  the  Jews. 
I  will  take  only  the  Psalms,  which,  as  products  of 
the  Hebrew  mind  of  a  very  high  antiquity,  whether 
they  were  all  written  by  David  or  not,  no  scholar 
has  ever  thought  of  questioning.  Many  of  them  are 
undoubtedly  as  old  as  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey, 
some  are  probably  much  older.  Contrast  their 
pure  and  sublime  monotheism  with  the  theogony 
of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  with  the  popular  gods  of 
Egypt  and  India ;  and  account  for  it,  if  you  can, 
consistently  with  the  laws  of  the  human  mind,  and 
with  the  history  of  human  progress  in  civilization, 
philosophy,  and  religion,  without  the  aid  of  imme- 
diate inspiration  or  an  antecedent  revelation. 

But  what  we  are  here  specially  concerned  to  re- 
mark is,  that  monotheism  is  the  only  possible  form 
of  theism  properly  so  called,  and  that  any  scheme 
of  polytheism,  even  the  dualism  of  the  Manichsean 
belief,  is  self-contradictory  and  absurd,  being  a 
denial  of  the  essential  attributes  which  constitute 
our  only  idea  of  Deity.  Either  there  is  but  one 
God,  or  there  is  no  God  at  all,  but  only  two  or 
more  limited,  finite,  and  derivative  beings,  each 
negativing  the  infinity  and  omnipotence  of  the 
other.  Neither  can  be  self-sustaining,  increate,  in- 
destructible, and  almighty,  except  by  reducing  the 
other  to  insignificance.     The  reasoning  of  Spinoza 


70  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

is  irrefutable  :  there  cannot  be  two  infinite  beings, 
since  there  would  always  be  one  thing  which  neither 
of  them  could  do,  namely,  to  destroy  the  other. 
Hence  the  word  is  in  truth  a  proper  name,  and 
since  it  was  not  commonly  so  understood,  the 
Hebrews  were  right  in  giving  Him  a  special  and 
distinctive  appellation.  "  And  God  spake  unto 
Moses  and  said  unto  him,  I  am  Jehovah  ;  and  I 
appeared  unto  Abraham,  and  unto  Isaac,  and  unto 
Jacob  by  the  name  of  God  Almighty  ;  but  by  my 
name  Jehovah  was  I  not  known  to  them."  Exod. 
vi.  2,  3.  And  again,  in  the  83d  Psalm,  "  That  men 
may  know  that  thou,  whose  name  alone  is  Jehovah, 
art  the  Most  High  over  all  the  earth."  Then  the 
Hebrews  were  right  again,  in  putting  this  sublime 
doctrine  of  the  unity  of  God  in  the  foreground,  as 
the  first  truth  of  their  philosophy  and  theology,  and 
as  the  basis  on  which  all  the  other  truths  depend. 

The  second  of  these  fundamental  truths  is  best 
expressed  in  the  euiphatic  declaration  of  our  Lord, 
"  God  is  a  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  must 
worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  It  was  en- 
forced in  the  second  law  of  the  Decalogue,  "  Thou 
shalt  not  make  unto  thee  any  graven  image,  or  any 
likeness  of  what  is  in  heaven  above,  or  in  the  earth 
beneath,  or  in  the  water  under  the  earth."  In  ac- 
cordance with  this  prohibition,  the  theology  of  the 
Hebrews   throughout   their    whole   history  is   dis- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  71 

tinguished  by  nothing  so  much  as  by  their  horror 
of  anthropomorphism,  or  rather  of  attributing  to 
Deity  any  definite  shape  or  likeness  whatsoever. 
Every  other  nation  on  earth  worshipped  God  under 
some  bodily  image  or  similitude,  and  therefore 
raised  to  him  statues  or  representations  in  stone, 
wood,  or  iron.  To  the  Jews  alone  this  was  the 
unpardonable  sin  of  idolatry,  for  it  was  a  limitation, 
or  rather  a  denial,  of  the  infinity  of  God.  The  in- 
junction in  the  Decalogue  is  simply  an  enforce- 
ment of  that  grand  doctrine  of  the  omnipresence  of 
Deity  which  underlies  the  most  sublime  passages  of 
Hebrew  poetry.  You  might  open  the  Old  Testa- 
ment almost  at  random  for  confirmations  of  this 
remark.  Take  the  following  from  the  139th  Psalm  : 
''  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit  ?  Or  whither 
shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ?  If  I  ascend  up 
into  heaven,  thou  art  there :  if  I  make  my  bed  in 
hell,  behold,  thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings 
of  the  morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of 
the  sea,  even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead  me,  and  thy 
right  hand  shall  hold  me."  Again,  in  Solomon's 
sublime  prayer  at  the  dedication  of  the  Temple  :  — 
"  But  will  God  indeed  dwell  on  the  earth  ?  Behold 
the  heaven,  and  heaven  of  heavens,  cannot  con- 
tain thee ;  how  much  less  this  house  that  I  have 
builded  ?  "  Even  where  God  appears  most  directly 
in  intercourse  with  man,  as  in  speaking  face  to 


72  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

face  with  Moses  or  with  Job,  He  comes  not  in  any 
visible  shape,  but  only  as  a  voice  in  the  inward  ear, 
a  voice  out  of  the  bush,  or  out  of  the  fire,  or  out  of 
the  whirlwind.  And  that  there  may  be  no  mistake 
on  this  cardinal  point,  the  people  were  reminded  in 
Deuteronomy  (iv.  15),  "for  ye  saw  no  manner  of 
simiHtude  on  the  day  that  the  Lord  spake  unto  you 
in  Horeb  out  of  the  midst  of  the  fire  ; "  therefore 
"  take  good  heed  unto  yourselves,  lest  you  make 
any  graven  image,  the  similitude  of  any  figure  ; 
and  lest  thou  lift  up  thine  eyes  unto  heaven,  and 
when  thou  seest  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and  the 
stars,  even  all  the  host  of  heaven,  shouldest  be 
driven  to  worship  them  and  serve  them." 

We  find,  where  we  should  least  expect  it,  in  the 
great  Roman  historian  who  was  nearly  a  contem- 
porary of  our  Lord,  a  striking  account  of  tliis  pe- 
culiarity in  the  doctrine  and  institutions  of  the  Jews, 
though  it  evidently  caused  him  more  astonishment 
than  admiration.  In  the  fifth  book  of  his  Histories, 
before  beginning  his  account  of  the  siege  and  cap- 
ture of  Jerusalem  by  Titus,  Tacitus  gives  a  pre- 
liminary sketch  of  the  character  and  origin  of  the 
Jewish  people,  which  in  some  respects  is  candid  and 
faithful,  though  the  errors  in  it  are  enough  to  prove 
that  it  was  compiled  from  hearsay  and  vulgar  rumor, 
and  not  from  direct  examination  of  the  Hebrew 
sacred   books.      After   glancing   at   the    supposed 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  73 

reasons  for  their  hebdomadal  division  of  time,  and 
for  the  observance  of  the  weekly  Sabbath  and  the 
Sabbatical  year,  he  goes  on  to  say,  they  believe  that 
"  the  souls  are  immortal  of  those  who  fall  in  battle 
or  are  put  to  death  by  their  conquerors  ;  hence  they 
are  pleased  with  the  increase  of  their  numbers,  and 
they  are  fearless  of  death.  After  the  Egyptian 
fashion,  they  bury  the  bodies  of  the  dead  instead  of 
burning  them.  Also,  they  have  the  same  belief  and 
rites  as  the  Egyptians  regarding  Hades  or  the  under- 
world, but  differ  from  them  in  respect  to  celestial 
beings,  or  the  heavens  above  us.  For  the  Egyptians 
worship  many  animals  and  images  made  by  hand ; 
but  the  Jews  hold  that  there  is  only  one  God, 
that  he  is  pure  mind  or  spirit,  ('  ludcei  mente  sola 
unumque  numen  intelliguiit^''^  and  that  those  are 
impious  who,  out  of  perishable  materials,  fashion 
images  of  gods  in  the  likeness  of  men.  They  be- 
lieve this  God  to  be  supreme,  eternal,  inimitable 
because  without  form,  and  imperishable.  There- 
fore they  allow  no  statues  in  their  cities,  nor  even 
in  their  temples  ;  they  will  not  pay  this  flattery  to 
kings,  nor  even  to  the  Roman  emperors."  He  sub- 
sequently adds,  that  "  Pompey  was  the  first  of  the 
Romans  who  subdued  the  Jews,  and  exercised  his 
right  as  conqueror  by  entering  their  temple ;  and 
it  thus  became  known  that  it  contained  no  divine 
similitude,  but  the  innermost  shrine  was  tenantless 


74  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

and  bare:  "  ''^ nulla  intus  deum  effi,gie  vacuam  sedem 
et  inania  arcana^ 

The  third  primary  truth  of  the  philosophy  of 
the  Bible  is  the  simple  aiOfirmation,  God  made  the 
world.  "  In  the  beginning,  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth."  Here  are  no  metaphysical  subtle- 
ties about  something  being  generated  from  nothing, 
but  it  is  obviously  implied  that  the  creation  thus 
spoken  of  was  one  of  order  out  of  confusion,  of  a 
cosmos  out  of  chaos  ;  since  it  is  said  in  the  second 
verse  of  the  account,  "  And  the  earth  was  without 
form  and  void,"  that  is,  was  shapeless  and  empty ; 
*'  and  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep  ;  and 
the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  wa- 
ters. And  God  said.  Let  there  be  light;  and  there 
was  light."  The  unequalled  majesty  and  force  of 
this  description  so  impressed  Longinus,  a  Pagan 
philosopher  and  rhetorician  of  the  third  century  of 
our  era,  that  he  cites  the  words,  in  his  treatise  on 
the  Sublime,  as  a  striking  instance  of  sublimity  in 
discourse  ;  but  the  citation  must  have  been  made 
from  memory,  without  sight  of  the  text,  as  he  adds 
to  the  quotation  this  clause,  which  really  enfeebles 
it  by  repetition,  "Let  the  earth  be,  and  the  earth 
was :  "  —  words  not  to  be  found  in  Genesis,  though 
they  are  contained  in  a  passage  in  the  Apocrypha. 
(2  Esdras  xvi.  bb^ 

We  have  here  to  look  only  at  the  face  of  the  ac- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  75 

count  and  at  the  primal  truths  which  may  underlie 
it,  disregarding  the  details  which  have  given  rise  to 
so  mucli  vain  speculation  in  theology  and  science. 
Thus  viewed,  it  must  be  obvious  to  any  one,  I 
think,  that  the  first  three  chapters  of  Genesis  con- 
tain an  ancient  Hebrew  poem,  or  rather  the  frag- 
ments of  several  such  poems  somewhat  imperfectly 
dovetailed  together,  in  praise  of  the  Creator,  and 
embodying  in  an  imaginative  form  the  national 
faith  respecting  the  act  of  creation  and  the  primi- 
tive state  of  man  on  earth.  These  are  no  more  to 
be  construed  literally  into  articles  of  belief  than 
are  the  first  three  books  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost, 
which  are  a  sort  of  modern  version  or  imitation  of 
them.  It  has  all  the  marks  of  such  poetry,  —  par- 
allelism of  thought  and  diction,  division  into  irregu- 
lar stanzas  each  having  a  sort  of  refrain,  magnifi- 
cence of  imagery,  and  vivid  personifications.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  fourth  stanza,  or  as  it  is  here 
called,  the  work  of  the  fourth  day  ;  it  is  all  aglow 
with  stateliness  of  phraseology,  picturesque  repeti- 
tions, and  liveliness  of  imaginative  detail.  "And 
God  said.  Let  there  be  liglits  in  the  firmament  of 
the  heaven  to  divide  the  day  from  the  night ;  and 
let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days 
and  years.  And  let  them  be  for  lights  in  the  firma- 
ment of  the  heaven,  to  give  light  upon  the  earth : 
and  it  was  so.     And  God  made  two  great  lights ; 


76  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

the  greater  light  to  rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser 
light  to  rule  the  night ;  he  made  the  stars  also." 
I  must  abridge  the  lyric  repetitions,  and  pass  at 
once  to  the  refrain,  "  and  God  saw  that  it  was 
good.  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the 
fourth  day."  Now  to  treat  this  magnificent  passage 
as  plain  didactic  prose,  and  to  inquire  curiously 
what  language  was  used  when  ''  God  said ; "  or 
how  the  sun  and  moon  came  first  to  be  created  three 
days  after  light  itself  was  generated ;  or  how  long 
a  period  of  time  was  embraced  in  what  is  here 
called  "the  fourth  day,"  is  a  mode  of  interpretation 
which  is  enough  to  drive  frantic  one  who  has  any 
feeling  for  poetry,  or  any  reverence  for  the  Bible. 
The  next  time  either  believing  or  infidel  geologists 
come  to  discuss  the  exact  meaning  of  the  six  days 
required  for  the  work  of  creation,  gravely  supposing 
that  such  speculations  involve  the  validity  of  the 
faith  of  Christendom,  I  hope  they  will  also  consider 
the  complaint  of  Job,  when  he  was  being  talked  to 
death  by  his  three  tormentors :  ''  No  doubt  but  ye 
are  the  people,  and  wisdom  shall  die  with  you.  O 
that  ye  would  altogether  hold  your  peace ;  and  it 
should  be  your  wisdom."  The  Hebrew  poet,  de- 
voutly attached  to  his  weekly.  Sabbath  and  Sabbat- 
ical year,  carried  back  in  idea  these  institutions  to 
the  foundation  of  the  earth,  and  made  the  septen- 
nial division   of  time,  marking  out  the  periods  of 


TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  77 

labor  and  repose,  one  of  the  imaginative  embellisli- 
ments  of  his  record  of  the  creation  of  the  world ; 
though  he  was  fully  aware  that,  to  the  infinite  and 
omnipotent  God,  whom  he  worshipped,  the  very 
words  work  and  rest  have  no  meaning,  and  are 
really  profane.  One  might  as  well  take  literally 
the  sublime  declaration  in  Job,  that,  at  the  crea- 
tion, "  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  jo}^" 

But  are  we  not  thus  sublimating  the  truths  of 
God's  word  into  the  idle  fancies  and  poetical  imag- 
inings of  mortal  men  ?  Certainly  not.  Remember 
what  has  been  already  said,  that  we  are  dealing 
not  directly  with  a  revelation,  but  with  the  rec- 
ord of  a  revelation,  a  record  which  is  at  least  500 
years  older  than  Homer.  Poetry  is  older  than 
prose.  In  that  early  age,  history,  morality,  and 
religion,  all  the  thoughts  of  men,  assumed  the  out- 
ward form  of  poetry  as  their  natural  garb.  The 
kernel  of  truth  always  had  a  framework  of  imagina- 
tive surroundings.  Within  these  few  last  years, 
the  marvellous  discoveries  of  Dr.  Schliemann  have 
proved,  that  what  Homer,  ^schylus,  and  Sophocles 
wrote  were  not  mere  idle  tales,  but  genuine  tradi- 
tions of  historical  personages  and  real  facts.  Un- 
der the  poetry  of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  if  we  are  not 
slaves  to  the  letter,  it  is  easy  to  penetrate  to  the 
spirit  which  lies  beneath,  and  to  discern  the  sober 


78  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

features  of  truth  lit  up  by  the  vivid  coloring  of  the 
imagination.  This  Hebrew  cosmogony,  this  old,  old 
story 

Of  man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree,  whose  mortal  taste 
Brought  death  into  the  world  and  all  our  woe, 

is  not  more  poetical  than  it  is  instructive.  Verse 
has  generally  been  the  outward  form  of  the  oracles 
of  God;  the  inspiration  of  the  poet  is  naturally 
connected  with  that  of  the  lawgiver,  the  religious 
reformer,  the  priest,  and  the  seer.  Truth  is  taken 
home,  is  lodged  in  the  memory,  and  affects  the  life, 
only  so  far  as  it  stirs  the  emotions  and  touches  the 
heart.  And  when  the  record  is  studied  for  edifica- 
tion at  a  later  day,  it  must  be  studied  as  poetry,  and 
not  as  prose ;  we  must  penetrate  to  the  heart  of  the 
flower,  in  order  to  reach  the  fruit. 

This  oldest  and  most  inspired  of  all  poems  teaches 
plainly  enough,  first,  as  has  been  said,  that  God 
made  the  world ;  next,  that  creation  was  not  a  sin- 
gle act  completed  as  soon  as  it  was  begun,  but  that 
it  extended  through  many  stages,  covering  vast  pe- 
riods of  time ;  and  finally  that  it  culminated  in  the 
birth  of  man.  ''  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nos- 
trils the  breath  of  life ;  and  man  became  a  living 
soul."  This  agrees  with  the  account  given  in  the 
earlier  version  of  the  poem,  where  we  read,  "  And 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  79 

God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our 
likeness."  Herein  is  plainly  tauglit  the  distinct 
personality  both  of  man  and  God,  and  that  each  is 
a  spiritual  being  capable  of  holding  intercourse 
with  the  other,  that  is,  of  imparting  and  receiving 
commands.  For  as  Plato  tells  us  in  the  conckiding 
sentence  of  the  Timseas,  oSe  6  koctixo^,  "  this  orderly 
arranged  universe,  having  received  animals  both 
mortal  and  immortal,  and  being  filled  Avith  them, 
has  become  the  sensible  image  of  the  intelligible 
God,  and  thereby  of  what  is  greatest,  best,  fairest, 
and  fnost  perfect."  The  whole  account  of  Eden, 
which  follows,  teaches  clearly  tlmt  man  is  created 
innocent  and  pure,  witli  a  revelation  through  his 
conscience  of  God's  law  of  holiness  ;  but  that  the 
temptations  of  appetite  and  passion,  the  lusts  of  the 
flesh,  are  too  strong  for  him,  and  he  falls  into  dis- 
obedience and  sin,  with  all  their  sad  consequences, 

"  With  loss  of  Eden,  till  one  greater  Man 
Restore  us  and  regain  the  blissful  seat." 

All  this  is  taught  by  the  poet  under  the  lively  alle- 
gory of  the  serpent  tempting  the  mother  of  man- 
kind, which  is  no  more  to  be  construed  literally 
than  the  corresponding  passage  in  Milton,  where 
he  represents  personified  Sin  and  Death  as  guard- 
ing the  portal  to  the  infernal  regions ;  the  underly- 
ing truth  to  the  story  of  the  enticement  in  Eden 


80  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

being  the  treacherous  approaches  of  sin  through 
wicked  thoughts  dallying  with  temptation.  In  a 
like  imaginative  manner,  the  writer  thus  sets  forth 
the  shame  which  follows  the  awakening  of  con- 
science and  the  detection  of  guilt :  "  And  they 
heard  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  walking  in  the 
garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day ;  and  Adam  and  his 
wife  hid  themselves  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord 
God  amongst  the  trees  of  the  garden."  This  is 
only  saying,  what  all  Christian  moralists  admit, 
that  the  voice  of  conscience  is  the  voice  of  God. 

It  has  been  falsely  charged  that  it  is  an  anthro- 
popathic  conception  of  Deity  to  represent  him  as 
holding  intercourse  directly  with  the  human  soul. 
But  it  is  not  so  to  one  who  believes,  what  the  Bible 
teaches  throughout,  the  distinct  personality  both  of 
God  and  man,  that  each  is  a  spirit,  and  each  may 
communicate  with  the  other  spiritually,  through  the 
inward  ear,  while  the  organs  of  sense  are  closed,  or 
do  not  exist.  All  of  this  is  involved  in  the  doctrine 
and  practice  of  silent  prayer.  It  is  anthropomor- 
phism and  idolatry  to  think  of  God  as  being  in  the 
outward  likeness  of  a  man  ;  but  it  is  piety  and  truth 
to  believe  that  man  is  made  in  the  spiritual  likeness 
of  God.  And  this  I  would  rank  as  the  fourth  primi- 
tive truth  distinctly  taught  throughout  the  succes- 
sive revelations  of  which  we  have  a  broken  and 
fragmentary  record  in  our  English  Bible. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  81 

The  fifth  fundamental  truth  clearly  taught  in 
each  of  these  three  revelations  is  the  grand  declara- 
tion that  God  governs  the  world  in  righteousness. 
Properly  considered,  it  is  the  most  important  of 
them  all.  The  other  three  are  the  foundations  of 
the  theology,  that  is,  of  the  doctrine  concerning 
God,  which  was  or  is  held  by  the  patriarchs,  and  by 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Christian  alike.  But  they  are 
merely  intellectual  truths,  like  the  primary  maxims 
concerning  time,  space,  and  number,  which  are  the 
foundations  of  metaphysics  and  mathematics,  and 
like  these  again,  not  necessarily  or  immediately 
affecting  the  conduct  or  the  life  of  men.  I  may 
believe  with  my  whole  soul,  as  firmly  as  I  do  in  the 
multiplication  table,  that  God  is  one,  that  he  is  a 
spirit,  and  that  he  made  the  world  ;  and  still  hold 
with  the  Epicurean  and  the  agnostic,  that  for  all  we 
know  to  the  contrary,  his  work  was  completed  at 
the  creation,  and  that  ever  since  he  has  remained 
apart,  not  regarding  the  affairs  of  men  or  in  any 
way  interfering  with  the  course  of  things  in  the 
universe.  But  this  fifth  truth,  solemnly  proclaimed 
in  each  of  the  three  Biblical  revelations,  is  the 
basis  not  only  of  a  theology,  but  of  a  religion.  It 
is  a  practical  truth,  and  not  one  of  mere  specula- 
tion. It  is  the  most  momentous  truth  ever  sounded 
in  the  hearing  of  man.  The  announcement  '  God 
governs  the  earth  in  righteousness '  means  that  he 

6 


82  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

has  made  known  his  will  and  his  law  unto  men,  and 
that  the  whole   course  of   events,  both  in  outward 
nature  and  in  the  human  soul,  is  a  manifestation 
and  an  enforcement  of  that  divine  law.     The  cove- 
nant  which  the   Lord   made  with   Moses  and  the 
people  of  Israel  was,  that  it  should  be  well  with 
the  righteous  and  ill  with  the  wicked  ;  and  their 
faith  that  this  covenant  was  binding,  and  would  be 
rigidly  kept,  pervades  all  their  literature  and  fur- 
nishes a  key  to  their  whole  history.     Their  lawgiv- 
ers, their  psalmists,  and  their  prophets  teach  but 
one  lesson  ;  they  only  reiterate  what  was  the  faith 
of  Abraham  and  the  word  which  was  spoken  by 
Moses  at  Sinai.     "  Know  therefore  this  day  and  con- 
sider it  in  thine  heart,  that  the  Lord  he  is  God  in 
heaven  above  and  upon  the  earth  beneath ;  there  is 
none  else.     Thou  shalt  keep  therefore  his  statutes 
and  his  commandments  which  I  command  thee  this 
day,  that  it  may  go  well  with  thee,  and  with  thy 
children  after  thee,  and  that  thou  mayest  prolong 
thy  days  upon  the  earth,  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee,  forever." 

So  strong  was  the  belief  of  the  Jews  in  the  en- 
forcement of  the  divine  law  during  the  present  life 
of  man  on  the  earth,  that  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
thought  of  the  probabiUty  of  a  future  life  beyond 
the  grave.  Save  the  questionable  interpretation  of 
one  or  two  obscure  phrases,  there  is  not  the  slight- 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  88 

est  proof  in  the  Old  Testament  that  the  Hebrews, 
before  the  period  of  the  Captivity,  ever  thought  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Even 
so  late  a  writer  as  Ecclesiastes,  probably  subsequent 
to  the  Captivity,  seeuiing  to  allude  to  the  primeval 
sentence  pronounced  after  the  fall  from  Eden,  says 
in  his  usual  gloomy  fashion,  "  All  go  unto  one 
place ;  all  are  of  the  dust,  and  all  turn  to  dust 
again.  Who  knoweth  the  spirit  of  man  that  goeth 
upward,  and  the  spirit  of  the  beast  that  goeth 
downward  to  the  earth?  "  And  again,  "  Then  shall 
the  dust  return  to  the  earth  as  it  was ;  and  the 
spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it."  At  the 
time  of  the  Saviour,  as  is  known,  the  large  and  in- 
fluential sect  of  the  Sadducees  positively  rejected 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  ;  and  even  the  Phar- 
isees seem  to  have  entertained  it  only  as  a  doubt- 
ful speculation,  as  one  guess  among  many,  and  not 
as  a  certified  belief.  Onlj^  the  doctrine  and  the 
resurrection  of  our  Lord  brought  life  and  immor- 
tality to  light.  Why  should  the  Jews  before  his 
time  have  entertained  this  doctrine,  when  they  be- 
lieved so  firmly,  that  holiness  carried  with  it  its 
own  blessings,  and  sin  bore  its  own  punishment,  in 
the  life  that  now  is?  Whatever  misfortunes  befell 
them,  if  their  crops  failed,  if  pestilence  came  among 
them,  or  if  they  were  delivered  into  the  hands  of 
their  enemies,  they  acknowledged  that  it  was  be- 


84  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

cause  tliey  had  sinned,  because  they  had  forgotten 
the  commandments  of  the  Lord  their  God,  and  only 
through    repentance    and    reformation    could    they 
look  for  returning   prosperity.     Even    though   ap- 
pearances were  against  them,  they  were  strong  in 
believing  that  "  the  just  shall  live  by  faith."     As 
their  prophet  (Habakkuk)  grandly  told  them,  "  Al- 
though  the  fig  tree  shall  not  blossom,  neither  shall 
fruit  be  in  the  vines ;  the  labour  of  the  olive  shall 
fail,  and  the  fields  shall  yield  no  meat ;  the  flock 
shall  be  cut  off  from  the  fold,  and  there  shall  be  no 
herd  in  the  stalls ;  Yet  will  I  rejoice  in  the  Lord, 
I  will  JOY  in  the  God  of  my  salvation."     This  is 
the  great  truth  which  is  recognized  and  expressly 
taught  even  in  all  worldly  systems  of  utilitarianism, 
and  as   such   is  accepted  and  formulated  by  such 
men  as  John  S.  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer.     They 
too   inculcate  morality  because  it  is  useful,  useful 
both  to  society  and  to  the  individual ;  that  is,  be- 
cause a  blessing   goes   along  with   it.     But   their 
system  is  an  inversion  of  the  true  doctrine.     They 
hold  that  the  action  is  right  because  it  is  useful ; 
whereas  conscience  and  the  Bible  declare,  that  it  is 
useful  because  it  is  right.     Even  Matthew  Arnold 
talks  of   "that  stream   of  tendency  by   which   all 
things  seek  to  fulfil  the  law  of  their  being ;  "  of  that 
"  stream   of   tendency,    the    Eternal    not-ourselves, 
which  makes  for  righteousness."     This  is  teaching 


TEE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  85 

the  doctrine  of  the  moral  government  of  the  world, 
but  with  a  fantastic  endeavor  to  cover  up  both  the 
personality  and  the  name  of  the  Divine  Governor, 
the  God  of  righteousness,  in  a  meaningless  abstrac- 
tion. 

According  to  this  doctrine  of  Hebrew  philosophy, 
even  the  external  aspect  of  the  life  that  now  is  be- 
comes the  visible  expression  of  the  sovereignty  of 
God ;  and  this  sovereignty  may  be  regarded  as  the 
sixth  fundamental  truth  taught  in  the  Scriptures. 
He  reigns  supreme ;  He  is  the  Lord  God.  of  Saba- 
oth,  the  ruler  of  nations,  the  king  whose  majesty, 
dominion,  and  power  are  revealed  in  every  outward 
event  and  in  the  whole  course  of  human  affairs. 
He  binds  the  sweet  influences  of  Pleiades  and  loos- 
eth  the  bands  of  Orion.  He  is  the  king  of  glory, 
the  Lord  strong  and  mighty,  even  the  Lord  mighty 
in  battle. 

Over  against  this  grand  conception  of  the  majesty 
of  Jehovah,  and  of  the  immediacy  of  his  govern- 
ment of  the  whole  earth,  yet  not  as  abrogating  but 
as  supplementing  it,  and  bringing  it  nearer  to  the 
hearts  and  consciences  of  men,  is  placed  the  Chris- 
tian idea  of  God  as  ''  Our  Father,"  who  pitieth  his 
children,  who  forgiveth  their  sins  and  healeth  their 
iniquities,  whose  loving  kindness  and  tender  mer- 
cies are  over  all  his  works.  To  the  Jew,  God  is 
king ;  to  the  Christian,  God  is  love.     The  promi- 


86  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

nent  idea  of  the  whole  New  Testament  is  the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  consequent  brotherhood  of 
men.  The  whole  decalogue  is  summed  up  in  the 
emphatic  declaration  of  Jesus  Christ :  —  ''  Thou 
shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and 
with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is 
the  first  and  great  commandment.  And  the  second 
is  like  unto  it,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  as 
thyself.  On  these  two  commandments  hang  all  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets." 

Kecapitulating,  we  find  these  seven  fundamental 
truths  underlying  the  three  successive  revelations 
of  which  the  Bible  purports  to  be  the  more  or  less 
perfe(;t  record  :  — 

1.  God  is  one. 

2.  God  is  a  spirit. 

3.  God  made  the  world. 

4.  The  distinct  personality  both  of  man  and  God, 
so  that  each  is  a  spiritual  being  capable  of 
holding  intercourse  with  the  other. 

6.  God  governs  the  world  in  righteousness,  re- 
warding those  who  keep,  and  punishing  those 
who  disobey,  His  commands. 

6.  In  each  of  His  functions,  as  Creator,  Sovereign, 

Lawgiver,  and  Judge,  God  is  love. 

7.  As  he  is  our  Father,  all  mankind  are  our 
brethren ;  and  the  whole  duty  of  man  is 
summed  up  in  the  comprehensive  injunction, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  87 

Thou  sbcilt  love  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  thy 

neighbour  as  thyself. 
It  is  obvious  that  these  seven  simple  truths,  if 
taken  together,  cease  to  be  a  mere  philosophy,  and 
already  constitute  a  theology  and  a  religion.  Con- 
sidered separately,  each  one  may  be  regarded,  per- 
haps, as  only  a  philosophical  or  ethical  truth,  which 
may  be  confirmed  by  reasoning  from  the  light  of  na- 
ture ;  though  all  of  them  could  not  have  been  collec- 
tively first  discovered  and  established  by  any  such 
process ;  certainly  not  then  and  there,  when  they 
were  originally  announced.  And  it  is  as  a  revela- 
tion from  God,  and  not  as  a  discovery  of  human  rea- 
son, that  they  are  taught  in  the  Bible ;  for  they  are 
therein  proclaimed  and  inculcated  as  by  authority 
from  heaven,  and  not  simply  reasoned  out  as  conclu- 
sions from  certain  premises.  They  are  published 
in  the  simple  formula,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord." 
He  who  accepts  them  as  such  may  properly  be  said 
to  believe  that  the  Bible  contains  the  word  of  God, 
whatever  other  ingredients,  claiming  no  such  au- 
thority, may  be  found  in  it  when  considered  merely 
as  an  aggregate  of  early  Hebrew  literature.  Such 
foreign  elements  may  rightfully  be  subjected  to 
searching  examination  and  criticism,  often  to  dis- 
paraging and  destructive  criticism  ;  since  I  do  not 
see  why  Jewish  literature  should  be  exempted  from 
the  application  of  such  scrutiny  any  more  than  the 


88  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

literature  of  any  other  nation,  say  of  the  Hindoos 
or  the  Greeks. 

But  the  distinctive  element  of  Christianity,  as  its 
very  name  iuiports,  is  not  merely  the  authoritative 
presentation  of  these  truths,  but  the  perfect  exem- 
plification of  them  in  a  living  form,  in  the  match- 
less Idea  incarnate,  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  In 
his  life,  his  character,  acts,  and  discourses,  to  which 
no  parallel  or  approximation  can  be  found  in  any 
other  history  or  literature,  we  behold  the  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  truth  that  God  is  love,  and  the 
enforcement  of  his  own  injunction,  *'  Be  ye  there- 
fore perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in  heaven  is  per- 
fect." The  doctrines  which  he  taught,  the  com- 
mands which  he  uttered,  and  the  incidents  in  his 
earthly  career  form  one  uniform  and  harmonious 
whole,  every  portion  of  which  illustrates  and  con- 
firms every  other  portion.  The  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  Parables  are  the  expression  of  his 
life,  and  are  summed  up  in  his  prayer  when  dying 
upon  the  cross,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they 
know  not  what  they  do."  And  what  a  character 
and  life  are  here  presented  for  our  contemplation,  in 
its  union  of  humility  with  majesty,  of  the  human 
with  the  divine!  Such  a  Person  could  not  pass 
across  the  stage  of  the  world's  history  without 
leaving,  as  he  has  done,  an  ineffaceable  imprint  on 
all  subsequent  ages  ;  without  becoming,  what  he  has 


TEE  PHILOSOPHY   OF  THE  BIBLE.  89 

been,  a  prime  factor  in  the  life  and  civilization  of 
the  human  race.  He  has  given  a  new  meaning  to 
the  spirit  which  constitutes  our  true  being  and  to 
the  doctrine  of  its  immortality.  In  the  highest 
sense  of  the  phrase,  he  has  illuminated  life  and  in- 
corruption. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    POETRY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

I  PASS  now  from  the  philosophy  to  the  poetry 
of  the  Bible.  This  is  hardly  a  change  of  theme ; 
for  the  only  subject  of  Hebrew  poetry,  tbe  only 
matter  which  the  Hebrew  poets  have  before  them, 
is  that  body  of  grand  fundamental  truths  which  has 
just  been  analyzed  as  underlying  equally  the  three 
revelations  recorded  in  the  Scriptures.  They  sing 
nothing  else  than  the  unity  and  infinity  of  God,  his 
spiritual  being,  his  distinct  personality,  his  creation 
of  the  world,  and  his  government  of  the  world  in 
righteousness.  They  have  no  epics,  seldom  any 
narrative,  and  no  proper  drama,  though  the  Book  of 
Job  is  in  the  dramatic  form,  while  its  purport  is 
theological  discussion.  All  their  poetry  is  lyric, 
devotional,  and  hortatory  or  didactic.  From  a  very 
early  day,  the  Jews  seem  to  have  possessed  a  number 
of  musical  instruments,  of  which  they  were  prob- 
ably the  inventors,  though  we  know^  little  about 
their  peculiar  construction,  and  nothing  of  their 
modes  of  musical  composition.  Accompanied  by 
these  instruments,  the  singers  and  Levites  appear 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  91 

to  have  intoned  or  chanted  their  psabiis  and  other 
sacred  songs,  often  having  double  choirs,  who  an- 
swered each  other  alternately,  processions  and 
dances  being  frequently  added.  The  poetry  of  the 
Hebrew  Prophets,  however,  could  not  have  been 
originally  sung,  but  must  have  been  declaimed 
or  recited.  As  is  always  the  case  in  very  ancient 
times,  nearly  all  the  literature,  even  that  which 
is  chiefly  historical,  legislative,  or  didactic,  seems 
naturall}^  to  lapse  into  poetry,  instead  of  preserving 
rigidly  the  sober  form  of  prose.  Thus,  not  only  in 
the  historical  books,  but  in  those  chiefly  occupied 
with  the  details  of  the  Hebrew  ritual,  we  often  find 
snatches  of  song,  and  other  passages  which  are 
evidently  derived  from  earlier  poems  that  have  not 
been  preserved,  as  the  poetical  coloring  remains. 
In  the  25th  chapter  of  the  first  Book  of  Chronicles 
is  an  elaborate  account  of  David's  institution  of 
numerous  choirs,  who  were  instructed  in  the  songs 
of  the  Lord,  "  with  cymbals,  psalteries,  and  harps, 
for  the  service  of  the  house  of  God,  according  to 
the  king's  order."  I  do  not  place  much  stress  upon 
this  account,  however,  as  the  date  of  the  Books  of 
Chronicles  is  uncertain,  and  is  probably  much  later 
than  the  time  of  David. 

But  in  spite  of  its  connection  with  music,  Hebrew 
poetry  comes  to  us  only  in  the  form  of  poetical  and 
rhythmical  prose.      It  seems  entirely  destitute  of 


92  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

proper  metrical  arrangement,  that  is,  of  the  regu- 
lar recurrence  of  similar   feet  disposed  in  various 
rhythms,  such   as  we  find   in  all  Greek  and  Latin 
poetry.     Some  think  that  in  the   ancient  mode  of 
pronouncing  the  Hebrew  language,  such  measures 
may  have  existed  ;  but  this  true  pronunciation  being 
irretrievably  lost,  no  trace  of  the  original  metre  can 
now  be  discerned.     To  our  ears,  the  only  distinctive 
feature  of  Hebrew  poetry,  its  parallelism,  is  just  as 
obvious  in  a  translation  as  in  the  original ;  for  it  is 
a  rhythm,  not  of  sound,  whether  accent  or  quantity, 
but  of  thought  and  sentiment.    The  leading  thought 
is  expressed  usually  in  coui)letS5  sometimes  in  trip- 
lets, of  which  the  first  member  really  contains  the 
guiding  idea,  and  the  second,  —  or  the  second  and 
third,   as  the  case   may  be,  —  simply  repeats   this 
thought,  or  amplifies  it,  or  balances  it  by  reply  or 
contrast.     Usually,  the  second  member  corresponds 
to  the  earlier  one  not  only  in  thought,  but  in  the 
form  of  expression,  whereby  the  similarity  or  con- 
trast is,  as  it  were,  emphasized.     The  pendulum  of 
the  clock  seems  to  beat  in  periods  of  two  or  three 
measures,  returning  after  the  completion  of  each  to 
the  starting  point  for  a  new  departure.    This  pecul- 
iarity  of  Hebrew  poetry  can  be  better  explained 
by  an  example  than  by  analysis  and  description.    I 
gladly  take  for  illustration  a  part  of  the  magnificent 
description,   in  the  18th  Psalm,  of  the  Lord  God 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  93 

coming  to  succor  the  righteous  in  their  distress,  the 
imagery  being  mainly  taken  from  a  thunderstorm. 
I  adopt  the  language  of  the  Common  Version  as 
slightly  modified  by  Dr.  Noyes,  in  order  to  bring 
out  more  distinctly  the  parallelism  of  which  the 
earlier,  translators  were  not  observant. 

"  In  my  distress,  I  called  upon  the  Lord, 
And  cried  unto  my  God. 

"  He  heard  my  voice  out  of  liis  temple, 
And  my  cry  came  before  him,  into  his  ears. 

"  Then  the  earth  shook  and  trembled ; 
The  foundations  of  the  hills  rocked  and  were  shaken, 
Because  his  wrath  was  kindled. 

"  There  went  up  a  smoke  out  of  his  nostrils, 
And  fire  out  of  his  mouth  devoured  ; 
Coals  were  kindled  by  it. 

"  He  bowed  the  heavens  also,  and  came  down  ; 
And  darkness  was  under  his  feet. 

"  He  rode  upon  a  cherub,  and  did  fly  ; 
Yea,  he  did  fly  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind. 

"  He  made  darkness  his  covering. 
His  pavilion  round  about  him  was  dark  waters  and  thick 
clouds  of  the  skies. 

"  At  the  brightness  before  him  his  thick  clouds  passed  away  ; 
Then  came  hailstones  and  coals  of  fire. 


94  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

"  The  Lord  also  thundered  from  heaven, 
And  the  Most  High  uttered  his  voice, 
Amid  hailstones  and  coals  of  fire. 

"  He  sent  forth  his  arrows  and  scattered  them, 
He  shot  out  lightnings  and  discomfited  them. 

"  Then  the  channels  of  the  deep  were  seen. 
And  the  foundations  of  the  earth  were  laid  bare, 

"  At  thy  rebuke,  O  Lord, 
At  the  blast  of  the  breath  of  thy  nostrils. 

"  He  stretched  forth  his  hand  from  above. 
And  drew  me  out  of  deep  waters. 

"  He  delivered  me  from  my  strong  enemy. 
From  my  adversaries  who  were  too  powerful  for  me." 

I  know  not  anything  in  all  Greek,  Latin,  or 
English  poetry,  that  matches  the  sublimity  and 
grandeur,  the  magnificent  sweep,  of  this  descrip- 
tion of  the  providence  of  God  as  manifested  in  the 
phenomena  of  nature.  It  is  Hebraistic  to  the  core ; 
Gentile  poetry  has  nothing  like  it. 

Thus  far  I  have  considered  only  what  may  be 
called  the  external  characteristics  of  Hebrew  poetry; 
that  is,  its  pervading  lyrical  form,  its  lack  of  any 
proper  metrical  arrangement,  and  its  parallelisms 
in  thought  and  sentiment.  Its  internal  peculiari- 
ties, which  are  strongly  marked,  and  by  which  it  is 


TEE  POETRY  OF   THE  BIBLE,  95 

broadly  distinguished  from  the  poetry  of  any  other 
nation,  are  all  clearly  traceable,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
to  the  nature  of  the  subject  of  which  it  treats. 
With  a  single  exception,  Hebrew  poetry  has  but 
one  theme,  which  is  a  very  broad  and  grand  one  ; 
this  is,  the  providence  of  God,  or  as  otherwise  ex- 
pressed, the  dealings  of  God  with  man.  The  excep- 
tion referred  to  is  the  Book  of  Canticles,  or  Solo- 
mon's Song  as  it  is  often  called,  which,  as  a  mere 
love  poem,  though  a  very  beautiful  one,  seems  to 
have  no  better  claim  than  the  idylls  of  Theocritus, 
or  the  amatory  verses  of  Catullus,  to  a  place  in  the 
Jewish  Scriptures,  except  as  it  is  in  the  Hebrew 
language.  Putting  this  book  aside,  therefore,  all 
the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  is  devotional  in 
tone,  and  treats  of  the  moral  government  of  the 
world.  It  thus  has  to  speak  of  the  duty  and  the 
destiny  of  man  as  affected  by  the  commands  and 
promises,  by  the  character  and  attributes,  of  the 
Almighty.  This  is  at  once  the  grandest  and  most 
interesting  theme  which  can  be  presented  for  human 
contemplation.  The  unity  and  infinity,  together 
with  the  holiness,  of  God  are  topics  which  the 
Hebrew  poets  are  never  weary  of  enforcing. 
Hence  their  sustained  loftiness  of  expression,  their 
grandeur  of  conception,  the  unequalled  majesty 
and  force  of  their  stj^le.  The  trutlis  which  they 
have  to  present  are  of  no  doubtful  import,  are  no 


96  A  STUDY   OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

matters  of  human  speculation,  but  are  absolute  and 
eternal ;  they  express  the  unchangeable  purposes 
of  the  infinite  One,  of  Him  who  created  and  gov- 
erneth  all  things.  The  ideas  of  eternity  and  in- 
finity, of  absolute  holiness,  justice,  and  truth,  are 
the  most  awful  and  impressive  that  can  be  placed 
before  the  human  mind.  They  not  only  stimulate 
the  imagination,  but  produce  the  emotions  of  sub- 
limity and  awe  which  no  other  theme  can  equally 
generate.  It  is  on  this  account  that  Hebrew  poetry 
stands  alone  in  all  literature.  Except  so  far  as  ad- 
miration of  it  has  induced  in  modern  times  attempts 
to  imitate  it,  and  has  thus  created  such  poems  as 
Dante's  Divine  Comedy,  Milton's  Paradise  Lost, 
and  Byron's  Cain,  there  is  not  only  nothing  second 
to  it,  but  nothing  like  it  in  the  whole  recorded  range 
of  human  thought.  These  imitations  are  certainly 
great  efforts  of  human  genius;  but  like  most  imita- 
tions, they  are  but  distant  and  faint  reflections, 
copies  in  water,  of  a  grand  original.  In  them,  mere 
fancy  is  constantly  usurping  the  functions  of  the 
imagination.  Hence  the  whole  framework  or  ma- 
chinery of  Dante's  poem  is  fantastic  and  absurd  ; 
we  cannot  accept  it,  it  produces  no  illusion,  we  only 
pardon  it  for  the  sake  of  the  poetry  with  which  it 
is  surrounded.  The  plot  and  most  of  the  incidents 
either  of  Milton's  or  Byron's  work  are  equally  un- 
real and  extravagant ;  when  stripped  of  their  poet- 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  97 

ical  garb  and  presented  naked  to  the  thought,  they 
are  seen  to  border  closely  on  the  grotesque. 

These  doctrines  respecting  the  nature  and  at- 
tributes of  the  Deity,  moreover,  are  not  presented 
merely  as  abstract  truths,  but  in  the  concrete,  as 
constantly  manifested  in  the  course  of  outward 
events  and  in  the  conduct  of  human  affairs.  They 
are  presented  as  practical  truths,  affecting  the  heart 
and  the  life,  and  shining  out  in  all  the  phenomena 
of  the  external  universe.  Hence,  more  than  any 
other  poetry,  that  of  the  Hebrews  lies  near  to 
nature,  paints  its  scenes,  and  reflects  all  its  varied 
aspects.  The  course  of  the  stars  is  God's  ordinance, 
and  every  member  of  the  vegetable  and  animal 
kingdom  testifies  to  his  greatness  and  obeys  his  law. 
He  "  alone  spreadeth  out  the  heavens,  and  treadeth 
upon  the  waves  of  the  sea."  He  "  binds  the  sweet 
influences  of  the  Pleiades  and  loosens  the  bands  of 
Orion,"  The  God  whom  the  Hebrews  worshipped 
is  he  "  Who  layeth  the  beams  of  his  chamber  in 
the  waters,  who  maketh  the  clouds  his  chariot,  and 
walketh  on  the  wings  of  the  wind."  "  He  shut 
up  the  sea  with  doors,  and  caused  the  dayspring  to 
know  its  place."  "  The  voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh 
the  cedars,  yea,  it  breaketh  the  cedars  of  Lebanon." 
"  He  sendeth  the  springs  into  the  valleys,  which 
run  among  the  hills."  "  The  young  lions  roar  after 
their  prey,  and  seek  their  meat  from  God."     He 


98  A   STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

clotheth  the  neck  of  the  horse  with  thunder  ;  "  he 
causeth  the  grass  to  grow  for  the  cattle,  and  herb 
for  the  service  of  man."  "  O  Lord,  how  manifold 
are  thy  works  !  in  wisdom  hast  thou  made  them 
all :  the  earth  is  full  of  thy  riches." 

All  of  this  is  so  peculiar  and  distinctive  of  the 
manner  of  the  Hebrew  poets,  that  if  I  had  not 
mentioned  the  sources  whence  these  extracts  are 
taken,  any  person  would  immediately  have  rec- 
ognized them  as  drawn  from  the  Bible.  All  of 
them  are  based  upon  those  fundamental  truths 
which  underlie  the  revelations  recorded  in  the 
Bible.  The  spirit  of  polytheism  is  entirely  differ- 
ent ;  that  of  pantheism  and  materialism  points  in 
the  opposite  direction.  You  find  little  or  nothing 
in  all  Greek  and  Latin  poetry  of  this  sublimit}^  of 
conception,  this  grandeur  of  utterance,  this  close 
sympathy  with  nature.  To  Homer  and  Virgil,  the 
outward  universe  does  not  reflect  the  character,  or 
move  responsive  to  the  wishes,  of  the  dwellers  on 
Olympus.  At  most,  they  exercise  only  a  fitful  and 
limited  dominion  over  it.  Indeed,  if  it  did  mirror 
their  character  and  attributes,  it  would  be  far  less 
good,  less  pure  and  bright,  than  it  now  appears  ; 
since  the  action  of  these  deities  is  such,  that  if 
brought  before  one  of  our  police  courts  for  licen- 
tious and  immoral  conduct,  it  would  go  hard  with 
all  of  them.     The  pantheistic  theory,  because  ex- 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  99 

clusively  metaphysical,  is  vague  and  dreamy ;  it 
does  not  come  near  to  life,  or  touch  individual 
events,  but  affects  one  with  a  painful  sense  of  the 
unreality  of  all  things.  Hence  it  is  wholly  unsuited 
to  the  purposes  of  poetry,  which  requires  the  par- 
ticular and  the  concrete.  Materialism  is  still  more 
destructive  of  the  essence  of  poetry,  as  it  is  gross 
and  mechanical.  It  offers  us  a  wooden  universe,  in 
which  there  is  neither  mind  nor  spirit,  but  brute 
force  and  blind  necessity  govern  all  things.  Lucre- 
tius announced  the  whole  philosophy  of  materialism 
nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 

"  The  Gods,  the  Gods  ! 
If  all  be  atoms,  how  then  should  the  Gods, 
Being  atomic,  not  be  dissoluble, 
Not  follow  the  great  law  ?  " 

—  Tennyson's  Lucretius, 

The  philosophy  of  the  Hebrews,  on  the  contrary, 
is  eminently  spiritual  and  human.  Through  its 
pure  and  noble  morality,  it  touches  the  feelings, 
wakens  the  affections,  and  guides  the  life.  Even 
the  Decalogue,  broad,  just,  and  unerring  though  it 
be  in  defining  the  limits  of  right  and  wrong,  is 
but  a  partial  expression  of  the  moral  law.  As  a 
judicial  system,  aiming  to  define  and  establish  the 
relations  between  the  human  and  divine,  and  be- 
tween man  and  man,  it  lays  down  only  the  duties 
of   perfect   and   universal   obligation,    leaving   the 


100  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

guidance  of  the  humane  affections  for  another  por- 
tion of  the  code.  Hence  it  furnishes  only  a  foun- 
dation for  ethics ;  it  expresses  the  law  of  justice, 
but  not  as  yet  the  law  of  love.  It  is  therefore  sup- 
plemented even  in  the  Mosaic  code  by  injunctions 
which  touch  more  directly  the  heart  and  the  life, 
since  they  are  an  anticipation  of  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tian morality.  In  the  same  portion  of  the  Book 
of  Exodus  whicli  contains  the  Ten  Commandments, 
we  find  also  these  precepts :  (xxii.  21-24  ;  xxiii. 
4-8.)  "  Thou  shalt  neither  vex  a  stranger,  nor 
oppress  him  ;  for  ye  were  strangers  in  the  land  of 
Egypt.  Ye  shall  not  afflict  any  widow  or  father- 
less child.  If  thou  afflict  them  in  any  wise,  and 
they  cry  at  all  unto  me,  I  will  surely  hear  their 
cry,  and.  my  wrath  shall  wax  hot,  .  .  .  and  your 
wives  shall  be  widows,  and  your  children  father- 
ress."  And  in  the  same  spirit  is  the  terrible  im- 
precation of  the  Psalmist  upon  the  wicked  man :  — 
"Let  there  be  none  to  extend  mercy  upon  him, 
neither  let  there  be  any  to  favor  his  fatherless 
children  ;  Because  that  he  remembered  not  to  show 
mercy,  but  persecuted  the  poor  and  needy  man, 
that  he  might  even  slay  the  broken  in  heart."  In 
the  directions  for  the  Sabbatical  year,  it  is  written, 
"  But  the  seventh  year,  thou  shalt  let  the  land 
rest  and  lie  still ;  that  the  poor  of  thy  people  may 
eat;   and  what  they  leave,  the  beasts  of  the  field 


THE  POETRY  OF   THE  BIBLE.  101 

shall  eat."  And  again  :  "  If  thou  meet  thine  ene- 
my's ox  or  Lis  ass  going  astray,  thou  shalt  surely 
brino:  it  back  to  him  again.  Thou  shalt  not  wrest 
the  judgment  of  thy  poor  in  his  cause.  Keep  thee 
far  from  a  false  matter ;  and  the  innocent  and 
righteous  slay  thou  not;  for  I  will  not  justify  the 
wicked.  And  thou  shalt  take  no  gift ;  for  the  gift 
blindeth  the  wise,  and  perverteth  the  words  of  the 
righteous." 

This  pure  and  beautiful  morality,  this  sympathy^ 
with  all  living  things,  but  especially  with  the  weak,, 
the  needy,   and  the   unfortunate,   is  the  source   of  j 
what    is    tender    and   pathetic  in    Hebrew  poetry,  I 
which  is  its   second   great  characteristic,  and   one  ( 
which  forms  a  chief  feature  of  the  Book  of  Psalms. 
What  is  distinctive  in  it  is  that  it  aims  to  direct  the, 
outward  conduct  only  by  correcting  the  spirit  which 
is  within,  by  purifying  the  heart  and  cultivating  all 
the  kindly  affections.     Hence  it  has  nothing  of  the 
formalism  and  stiffness  of  ethical  theory,  but  finds 
its  natural  expression,  without  effort  or  straining, 
in  kind  words  and   deeds  and  the  formation  of  a 
beautiful  character.     It  is  the  Christian  virtue  de- 
scribed by  St.  Paul  in  the  single  word  rendered, by 
our  translators  as  charity.,  though  its  meaning  is  not 
limited  to   mere   alms-giving,  but  properly  stands 
for  universal  love.,  so  that  it  coincides  with  the  ex- 
cellence which  John  is  never  weary  of  inculcating. 


102-  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  element  which  Christianity 
has  added  to  the  civilization  of  the  world. 

The  earliest  poetry  found  in  the  Bible  consists  of 
the  triumphal  songs  and  fragments  of  song  which 
are  interspersed  in  the  Pentateuch  and  other  an- 
cient books  of  the  Old  Testament.  Such  are  the 
exultant  chant  of  Moses  and  Miriam  after  crossing 
the  Red  Sea,  the  song  of  Deborah  and  Barak,  the 
songs  of  blessing  uttered  by  Jacob  and  Moses  when 
on  their  death-beds,  the  lamentation  of  David  over 
Saul  and  Jonathan,  and  the  fragments  which  con- 
stitute the  story  of  creation  and  the  fall,  together 
with  the  legend  of  Balaam  and  Balak.  These  are 
specially  interesting  not  only  on  account  of  their 
intrinsic  merits,  their  marvellous  grandeur,  bold- 
ness, and  imaginative  force,  but  because  they  con- 
tain the  materials  of  history,  because  they  represent, 
so  to  speak,  the  process  of  history  in  the  making. 
Traditions  respecting  the  earlier  life  of  a  nation  are 
naturally  embodied  in  popular  ballads  and  songs, 
such  as  those  from  which  Livy  is  supposed  to  have 
extracted  his  legendary  story  of  ancient  Rome. 
These  have  perished,  and  Macaulay  has  tried  to  re- 
produce them  in  his  spirited  Lays.  English  and 
Scotch  ballads  of  a  far  later  day  answer  a  similar 
purpose.  Such  ballads  are  the  best  material  for 
the  dawn  of  history,  as  they  cannot  be  counter- 
feited.    Handed  down   from  father  to  son  by  fre- 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  103 

quent  repetition,  they  have  the  true  ring  of  genu- 
ineness ;  they  are  faithful  and  lively  pictures  of  a 
people's  infant  life.  The}^  reproduce  in  vivid  color- 
ing the  men  and  the  events  of  the  olden  time. 
Such  are  the  poetical  fragments  which  we  find  in 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  Book  of  Judges.  I  cannot 
doubt  the  substantial  verity  of  the  great  events  of 
which  these  noble  songs  are  a  contemporaneous  and 
graphic,  though  imperfect,  record.  Doubtless  there 
are  poetical  exaggerations  and  embellishments  in 
them;  this  follows  from  the  very  nature  of  ancient 
ballad  poetry.  (So  in  Chevy  Chase.)  Correct  sta- 
tistics, plain  and  exact  narratives  of  facts,  do  not 
belong  to  hoar  antiquity.  The  record  is  magnified 
by  national  pride  ;  it  is  gilded  by  the  warm  hues  of 
the  imagination.  Allowances  must  be  made  in  in- 
terpreting it;  but  substantial  truth  lies  beneath. 
In  studying  the  earlier  history  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
we  make  such  deductions  and  admissions  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  without  giving  up  our  faith  in  the 
general  accuracy  of  the  accounts.  No  one  doubts 
that  the  Greeks  had  a  naval  victory  at  Salamis,  and 
triumphed  against  great  odds  at  Platsea ;  but  I  sup- 
pose no  scholar  believes  Herodotus  when  he  states 
that  the  armament  which  Xerxes  led  into  Greece 
consisted  of  more  than  two  millions  of  fighting  men. 
The  number  of  Persians  who  were  defeated  by  a 
handful  of  Greeks  at  Marathon  is  variously  said  by 


104  A  STUDY  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

different  historians  to  have  been  from  110,000  to 
over  half  a  million ;  but  we  do  not  therefore  deny- 
that  a  great  battle  was  then  and  there  fought.  Go- 
ing back  to  a  period  nearly  a  thousand  years  before 
Marathon  and  Platsea,  one  may  reasonably  refuse 
to  believe  that  the  Hebrews  whom  Moses  led  out 
of  Egypt  in  one  day  and  night  numbered  about 
600,000  men,  besides  women  and  children ;  or  that 
this  vast  multitude,  with  their  flocks  and  herds, 
"even  very  much  cattle,"  subsisted  for  forty  years 
in  the  wilderness.  But  we  do  not  thereby  abate 
our  faith  in  the  general  correctness  of  the  story  of 
the  Exodus  as  told  in  the  Pentateuch,  or  in  the  mi- 
raculous nature  of  the  revelation  at  Sinai.  Jewish 
institutions,  like  the  feasts  of  the  Passover  and  the 
Tabernacles,  which  have  been  handed  down  by 
constant  tradition  through  the  lapse  of  over  3,000 
years,  our  Christian  institution  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
being  in  some  sort  a  continuation  of  the  former  of 
them,  supply  collateral  and  irrefutable  proof  that 
the  story  is  authentic  ;  belief  in  it  permeates  all 
Hebrew  literature  and  Hebrew  life.  And  the  grand 
triumphal  song  of  Moses  and  Miriam,  the  oldest 
still  extant  poetry  that  was  ever  sung,  confirms  the 
legend  and  brings  the  main  incident  in  it  vividly 
before  us.  Such  an  inspired  creation  cannot  have 
been  the  forgery  of  a  later  age.  In  its  bold  and 
lofty  imagery,  its  picturesque  phrases,  its  lyric  rep- 


THE  POETRY   OF  THE   BIBLE.  105 

etitions,  we  have  the  genuine  stamp  of  remote 
antiquity.  Tlie  tramp  of  the  Egyptian  cavalry,  the 
rush  of  Pharaoh's  chariots  of  war,  and  the  roar  of 
mighty  waters  which  suddenly  overwhelmed  them, 
become  almost  audible  as  we  listen  to  the  song.f 
Not  to  the  fugitives'  own  strategy  or  prowess,  but 
to  the  might  of  Jehovah,  of  the  God  of  Sabaoth,  is 
the  victory  ascribed. 

"  Sing  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  has  triumphed  gloriously ; 
the  horse  and  his  rider  hath  he  thrown  into  the  sea." 
"  Pharaoh's  chariots  and  his  host  hath  he  cast  into  the 
sea  ;  his  chosen  captains  also  are  drowned  in  the  Red 
Sea."  "  The  enemy  said,  I  will  pursue,  I  will  overtake, 
I  will  divide  the  spoil ;  my  lust  shall  be  satisfied  upon 
them  ;  I  will  draw  my  sword,  mine  hand  shall  destroy 
them.  Thou  didst  blow  with  thy  wind,  the  sea  covered 
them ;  they  sank  as  lead  in  the  mighty  waters.  Who 
is  like  unto  thee,  O  Lord,  among  the  gods  ?  "Who  is 
like  thee,  glorious  in  holiness,  fearful  in  praises,  doing 
wonders  ?  "  "  But  the  children  of  Israel  went  on  dry 
land  in  the  midst  of  the  sea." 

In  like  manner,  in  the  inspired  song  of  Deborah 
and  Barak,  perhaps  one  or  two  hundred  A^ears  later, 
we  have  the  truth  of  history  as  to  the  leading  inci- 
dents of  the  narrative,  whatever  may  be  the  incor- 
rectness of  the  details. 

"  Lord,  when  thou  wentest  out  of  Seir,  when  thou 
marchedst  out  of  the  field  of  Edom,  the  earth  trembled, 


106  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

and  the  heavens  dropped,  the  clouds  also  dropped  water." 
"  The  kings  came  and  fought,  then  fought  the  kings  of 
Canaan  in  Taanach  by  the  waters  of  Megiddo."  "  They 
fought  from  heaven;  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought 
against  Sisera.  The  river  of  Kishon  swept  them  away, 
that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon."  "  Then  were  the 
horsehoofs  broken  by  means  of  the  prancings,  the  pranc- 
ings  of  their  mighty  ones."  "  At  her  feet  he  bowed,  he 
fell,  he  lay  down ;  at  her  feet  he  bowed,  he  fell ;  where 
he  bowed,  there  he  fell  down  dead."  "  The  mother  of 
Sisera  looked  out  at  a  window,  and  cried  through  the 
lattice,  Why  is  his  chariot  so  long  in  coming  ?  Why 
tarry  the  wheels  of  his  chariots  ?  Her  wise  ladies  an- 
swered her,  yea,  she  returned  answer  to  herself.  Have 
they  not  sped  ?  have  they  not  divided  the  prey ;  to  every 
man  a  damsel  or  two  ;  to  Sisera  a  prey  of  divers  colors, 
a  prey  of  divers  colors  of  needlework  on  both  sides,  meet 
for  the  necks  of  them  that  take  the  spoil  ?  So  let  all 
thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord ;  but  let  them  that  love 
him  be  as  the  sun  when  he  goeth  forth  in  his  might.  And 
the  land  had  rest  forty  years." 

A  corresponding  fragment  of  song,  celebrating 
the  victory  of  Joshua  over  the  Amorites,  has  been 
strangely  misunderstood  by  the  literal  interpreters, 
as  if  it  were  a  prose  narrative  of  what  actually  took 
place.     Grandly  the  old  Hebrew  poet  sings,  — 

"  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon, 
And  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon. 
And  the  sun  stood  still, 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE,  107 

And  the  moon  stayed, 

Till  the  people  had  avenged  themselves  on  their  enemies." 

"  Is  not  this  written,"  it  is  added,  "in  the  book  of 
Jaslier  ?  "  Who  does  not  recognize  this  as  poetry, 
even  if  it  had  not  been  quoted  from  a  book  of 
poems  ?  In  the  common  language  of  the  Hebrews, 
such  expressions  were  neither  bold  nor  unusual.  If 
similar  passages  were  thus  literally  construed,  the 
result  would  be  curious  ;  as  when  it  is  said  that 
"the  hills  melted  like  wax  at  the  presence  of  the 
Lord."  The  meaning  plainly  is,  that  the  sun  and 
moon  witnessed  the  triumph  of  Joshua,  and  while 
they  still  held  their  course  in  the  heavens  during 
one  day,  the  victory  was  completed. 

But  the  Bible  has  other  and  more  continuous 
poetry  than  these  ancient  fragments  of  legendary 
song.  About  one  half  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
pure  lyric  poetry,  mostly  devotional  and  didactic  in 
purport,  all  of  it  profoundly  serious  and  majestic  in 
tone.  There  is  the  noble  collection  of  the  Psalms, 
150  in  number,  a  large  portion  of  which  are  un- 
questionably either  by  David  or  belonging  to 
David's  age,  and  so  at  least  as  old  as  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey,  while  the  later  ones  were  certainly 
written  before  Herodotus  was  born.  There  is  the 
Book  of  Proverbs,  the  earlier  chapters  of  which  are 
assigned  by  the  best  critics  either  to  King  Solomon 
or  Solomon's  age,  while  the  others  are   not  much 


108  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

later ;  and  the  unique  Book  of  Job,  the  period  of 
which  is  uncertain,  though  Renan  conjectures  that 
it  belongs  to  the  seventh  or  eighth  century  B.  C. 
My  own  belief  is,  that  with  the  exception  of  the 
prologue  and  the  epilogue,  which  are  in  prose,  and 
which  were  probably  added  or  altered  at  a  later 
day,  the  body  of  the  poem  belongs  to  a  considerably 
earlier  age  ;  it  may  be  older  than  the  larger  portion 
of  the  Pentateuch.  Then  come  Isaiah  and  the  other 
Prophets,  ranging  from  about  800  B.  c.  to  a  period 
somewhat  later  than  the  Captivity,  perhaps  to  the 
fourth  century  B.  c.  We  have  a  full  Greek  transla- 
tion of  them  and  of  the  other  books  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  Septuagint,  as  it  is  called,  exe- 
cuted in  the  third  century  before  the  Christian 
era. 

Of  course,  we  need  not  here  regard  Sanscrit 
literature,  that  is,  the  Vedas  or  sacred  books  of  the 
Hindoos,  as  comparatively  little  is  known  about 
them,  and  the  full  consideration  of  them  belongs 
only  to  a  very  few  Sanscrit  scholars.  They  are 
chiefly  interesting  in  their  philological  aspect ; 
either  as  poetry  or  history  they  can  hardly  be  com- 
pared with  Hebrew  literature.  I  believe  the  ear- 
liest of  the  Vedas  are  now  held  by  scholars  to  be 
two  or  three  centuries  later  in  origin  than  the  sup- 
posed date  of  the  Pentateuch. 

Concerning  this  great  body  of  Hebrew  poems, 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  109 

my  point  is,  that  with  respect  to  their  antiquity,  to 
the  amount  of  history  which  is  wrapped  up  in  them, 
many  of  the  Psahns  and  all  of  the  Prophets  being 
semi-historical,  and  to  their  intrinsic  poetical  merits, 
they  are  at  least  as  interesting  and  important  to 
scholars,  even  in  their  exclusively  secular  aspect, 
as  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  literature.  A  system! 
of  liberal  education  cannot  be  regarded  as  com- 
plete without  much  study  of  them.  The  Psalms 
differ  from  the  earlier  fragments  of  Hebrew  song 
especially  in  the  amazing  variety  and  fertility  of 
the  subjects  considered  in  them,  and  in  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  their  range.  They  pass  through 
every  mode  of  the  lyre,  and  strike  every  chord  of 
the  human  heart.  There  is  hardly  any  devout  senti- 
ment or  tender  affection  of  which  man's  nature  is 
capable  to  which  they  do  not  give  utterance.  There 
is  no  lofty  topic  of  contemplation  in  the  outward 
universe,  or  in  the  relations  of  God  with  man,  which 
they  do  not  set  forth  and  elevate  with  new  grandeur 
and  impressiveness.  Some  of  them,  such  as  the 
19th,  the  90th,  the  104th,  and  the  139th,  are  so 
majestic  and  sublime  that  they  can  hardly  be  read 
from  beginning  to  end  without  awe  and  tears.  Un- 
happily, as  Dr.  Noyes  remarks,  the  hearing  of  most 
persons  has  become  so  accustomed  to  them  at  an 
early  period  of  life,  before  the  mind  could  compre- 
hend their  meaning  or  feel  their  beauty,  that  no 


110  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

little  effort  is  needed  in  later  years  to  waken  the 
soul  afresh  to  the  full  effect  which  they  might  pro- 
duce. What  a  sensation  would  they  create,  if  they 
could  now  be  brought  before  the  world  for  the  first 
time ! 

In  the  sweetness,  tenderness,  and  trustful  spirit 
of  the  earlier  Psalms,  in  their  pastoral  character 
reflecting  the  scenes  and  incidents  of  nomadic  life, 
we  discern  the  special  element  which  was  added  to 
Hebrew  poetry  by  the  royal  bard,  the  shepherd- 
king,  who  rescued  Israel  so  often  from  her  enemies, 
and  ruled  her  so  long  and  through  so  many  vicissi- 
tudes. Who  but  David  can  be  the  singer  when  we 
hear  the  chant,  "  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd  ;  I  shall 
not  want.  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green 
pastures  ;  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters." 
"  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil ;  for  thou  art 
with  me  ;  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they  comfort  me." 
In  nearly  the  first  incident  which  is  reported  of 
David's  life,  we  find  foreshadowed  the  influence 
which  his  songs  were  to  exert  over  restless  con- 
sciences and  troubled  hearts  through  all  future  time. 
''And  it  came  to  pass  when  the  evil  spirit  from 
God  was  upon  Saul,  that  David  took  an  harp  and 
played  with  his  hand  ;  so  Saul  was  refreshed,  and 
the  evil  spirit  departed  from  him."  Again,  in  the 
pathetic  earnestness  of  other  royal  Psalms,  in  their 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  Ill 

penitent  confessions  and  cries  for  pity,  we  see  mir- 
rored the  other  and  darker  features  of  David's 
strangely  chequered  character  and  life.  His  was 
by  no  means  a  faultless  career ;  portions  of  it  were 
deeply  stained  with  guilt.  But  there  was  a  noble, 
even  a  kingly  spirit  in  him ;  his  is  the  most  deeply 
interestinoj  figure  in  the  whole  Jewish  record. 
Study  the  incidents  in  his  earlier  career,  when 
Jonathan  was  befriending  him,  but  Saul  was  trying 
to  hunt  him  out  like  a  wild  beast  in  the  wilderness, 
and  you  recognize  the  true  chivalrous  element  in 
his  character  ;  he  has  the  noble  heart  of  a  Christian' 
knight-errant.  And  Saul,  too  ;  what  a  grand  figure 
he  is  in  the  dimly  lighted  hall  of  early  Hebrew 
history,  and  what  tragic  interest  in  the  mournful 
narrative  of  his  wasted  life  ! 

Two  other  of  the  poetical  Books  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament are  distinguished  by  a  pervading  tone  of 
melancholy ;  they  are  Job  and  Ecclesiastes.  The 
burden  of  the  former  is,  that  "  although  affliction 
Cometh  not  forth  of  the  dust,  neither  doth  trouble 
spring  out  of  the  ground,  yet  man  is  born  unto 
trouble,  as  the  sparks  fly  upward;"  wiiile  "the 
Preacher"  declares  that  "  in  much  wisdom  is  much 
grief,  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth 
sorrow."  But  there  is  nothing  defiant  or  denuncia- 
tory in  the  tone  of  either ;  the  expression  is  of  sad- 
ness, not  of  bitterness  of  soul.     The  plaint  is  that 


112  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

of  the  poet,  not  of  the  pessimist.  It  is  the  tendency 
to  melancholy  which  usually  belongs  to  the  poetical 
temperament,  and  seems  a  natural  accompaniment 
of  the  highest  genius.  It  springs  from  a  lively 
imagination,  and  from  cultivating  aspirations  which 
are  so  lofty  that  nothing  earthly  corresponds  to 
them.  As  manifested  by  these  old  Hebrew  poets, 
it  would  seem  as  if  they  were  groping  anxiously 
after  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  and  were  not  able 
to  find  it.  Neither  of  them  shows  the  least  tendency 
to  scepticism  or  unbelief;  both  maintain  an  un- 
broken faith  throughout  their  troubles.  The  spirit 
expressed  is  always  that  of  submission  and  trust. 
"  What !  shall  we  receive  good  at  the  hand  of  God, 
and  shall  we  not  receive  evil?"  And  Ecclesiastes 
declares  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  to  be, 
"  Fear  God,  and  keep  his  commandments  ;  for  this 
is  the  whole  duty  of  man." 

The  Book  of  Job  is  further  remarkable  because 
it  has  no  connection  witli  the  customs  or  institutions 
of  the  Jews,  or  with  the  great  events  of  their  na- 
tional history.  It  is  rather  a  Semitic  or  Arab,  than 
a  Jewish,  poem  ;  only  the  language,  and  the  grand 
underlying  truths  of  the  patriarchal  and  Mosaic 
revelations,  are  Hebrew.  Even  the  scene  is  laid  in 
the  land  of  Uz  or  Idumsea,  a  part  of  Arabia ;  and 
there  are  no  allusions  to  Lebanon  or  Carmel,  or  to 
anything  which   is   distinctive   of   the   climate   or 


THE  POETRY  OF  THE  BIBLE.  113 

geography  of  Judea.  On  this  account  alone,  in  the 
absence  of  any  positive  indications  of  the  date  of 
its  composition,  the  body  of  the  Book  seems  to  me 
to  belong  to  patriarchal  times,  and  probably  to  be 
the  most  ancient  portion  of  Hebrew  literature.  The 
characters  and  the  manners  described  remind  us 
rather  of  Abraham  and  Lot,  than  of  Moses,  or 
Samuel,  or  Solomon.  It  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  a  Hebrew  poet  of  a  later  age  could  have 
thus  entirely  put  aside  the  history  and  the  institu- 
tions of  his  race,  could  have  so  forgotten  his  pride 
at  being  one  of  God's  chosen  people,  and  have 
transported  himself  in  imagination  to  the  time, 
the  place,  and  the  life  of  the  patriarchs. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  the  in- 
cidents, the  characters,  and  the  speeches  which  are 
described  or  reported  are  entirely  the  work  of  the 
imagination,  and  are  in  no  sense  real  or  historical. 
The  Book  of  Job  is  a  grand  philosophical  poem,  not 
a  record  of  actual  occurrences.  The  subject  con- 
sidered is  the  ways  of  Providence  in  dealing  with 
man  and  distributing  good  and  evil^  in  this  world. 
An  eminently  righteous  man,  highly  respected  as 
having  always  maintained  his  integrity  and  prac- 
tised the  works  of  love,  is  represented  as  suddenly 
overwhelmed  with  the  most  cruel  calamities  alike 
in  his  property,  his  family,  and  his  person.  He 
breaks  out,  as  is  natural,  into  passionate   lamenta- 


114  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

tions  at  his  hard  fate,  and  declares  that  it  is  en- 
tirely undeserved.  But  his  three  friends,  who  had 
come  to  condole  with  him,  in  fact  aggravate  his 
sufferings  and  exasperate  him  by  maintaining  un- 
seasonably that  God  is  just,  and  that  Job  must 
have  been  a  great  sinner,  or  such  evils  could  not 
have  come  upon  him.  Long  discussions  ensue,  not 
in  the  way  of  conversation,  but  of  earnest  and  pro- 
tracted debate.  The  three  friends  are  hard  and 
Pharisaical  in  their  discourse,  and  the  sufferer  makes 
head  as  best  he  may  against  them,  repelling  their 
unjust  accusation,  but  not  blaspheming  or  directly 
impeaching  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  God.  At 
last,  Jehovah  himself  answers  Job  out  of  the  whirl- 
wind, and  sets  forth  in  the  most  impressive  and 
sublime  manner  liis  own  majesty  and  omnipotence, 
teaching  thereby  the  duty  of  submission  and  un- 
limited trust  in  the  infinite  One.  Job  humbles 
himself  accordingly,  and  in  the  end  is  fully  recom- 
pensed, while  the  three  friends  are  sharply  censured 
and  dismissed. 

Such  is  the  slight  framework  upon  which  the 
:  author  has  built  up  the  grandest  philosophical  poem 
in  tlie  literature  of  the  world.  In  boldness  of  im- 
agery and  descriptive  power,  in  fervid  eloquence 
and  sublimity  of  thought,  there  is  nothing  equal  to 
it  in  the  whole  range  of  ancient  and  modern  poetry. 
In  our  Common  Version  of  it  we  clearly  recognize 


TEE  POETRY  OF   THE  BIBLE.  115 

those  qualities  of  style  by  which  the  language  of 
the  original,  in  the  opinion  of  a  great  Oriental 
scholar,  is  distinguished.  "  The  language  of  the 
Book  of  Job,"  says  M.  Renan,  "is  at  once  the  most 
limpid,  condensed,  and  classical  Hebrew.  We  find 
in  it  all  the  qualities  of  the  antique  style,  such  as 
conciseness,  frequent  obscurity  and  abruptness  of 
expression,  as  if  the  words  were  struck  out  by  blows 
of  a  hammer,  together  with  a  breadth  of  phrase 
which  seems  always  to  leave  some  hidden  meaning 
to  be  discerned,  and  a  delightful  ring  like  that  of 
hard  and  pure  metal."  Let  me  recommend  to 
you  Renan's  own  masterly  version  of  Job  into  the 
French  tongue,  and  the  learned  and  eloquent  intro- 
duction to  the  study  of  the  poem  by  which  it  is 
preceded. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   HISTORY    CONTAINED    IN    THE    BIBLE.  —  THE    CHAR- 
ACTER   AND    THE    INSTITUTIONS    OF   MOSES. 

The  whole  history  of  the  Jews,  so  far  as  it  is 
contained  in  the  Old  Testament,  may  properly  be 
said  to  be  anterior  even  to  the  beginning  of  secular 
history.  The  Book  of  Ezra,  the  latest  portion  of 
it,  does  not  bring  down  the  narrative  of  events  later 
than  450  B.  c,  which  is  probably  about  the  time 
when  Herodotus,  who  is  rightly  called  the  father 
of  profane  history,  as  he  is  the  earliest  professed 
historian  whose  work  has  come  down  to  us  entire, 
began  to  write ;  and  the  narrative  is  carried  back 
by  Herodotus  only  about  one  hundred  years,  to 
546  B.  C,  when  Cyrus  conquered  the  kingdom  of 
Croesus.  Of  course,  I  put  aside  any  consideration 
of  the  mere  fragments  which  the  industry  of  the 
learned,  chiefly  within  the  present  century,  has  col- 
lected pertaining  to  the  early  history  of  India,  Egypt, 
and  Assyria;  these  are  not  so  much  history  as  broken 
and  imperfect  data  which  at  some  future  time,  per- 
haps under  the  light  thrown  upon  them  by  the 
Hebrew  records,  may  be  pieced  together  into  some- 


THE  HISTORY  CONTAINED  IN  THE  BIBLE.    117 

thing  like  a  connected  narrative.  Of  the  history 
of  the  world  for  at  least  one  thousand  years,  begin- 
ning about  1600  B.  C,  the  only  continuous  portion 
having  any  claim  to  genuineness  and  authenticity 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

In  the  countless  discussions  to  which  what  is 
called  the  higher  historical  criticism  of  the  Hebrew 
ScrijDtures  has  given  rise,  I  do  not  think  this  fact 
has  been  sufficiently  considered  or  allowed  its  due 
weight.  These  records,  purporting  in  great  part  to 
have  been  made  almost  contemporaneously  with 
the  events  narrated  in  them,  have  been  scrutinized 
as  if  they  had  been  written,  under  the  full  light  of 
modern  civilization,  by  scholars  practised  in  literary 
art  and  skilled  in  weighing  testimony,  estimating 
numbers,  and  discerning  the  truth  amid  contradic- 
tory reports.  But  it  was  far  otherwise.  The  Jew- 
ish historical  Books  are  the  rude  compositions,  or 
frequently  the  hasty  compilations,  of  unlearned 
men,  who  were  fond  of  story-telling,  and  remarka- 
ble for  their  clannish  spirit,  their  pride  of  race,  and 
the  fervor  of  their  religious  faith.  They  are  emi- 
nently inartistic.  We  must  not  expect  to  find  in 
them  either  continuous  narrative  or  precision  of 
statement.  Their  contents  are  often  loosely  heaped 
together,  consisting  of  national  ballads  or  songs, 
genealogical  lists,  ritualistic  injunctions,  and  frag- 
mentary legends  or  vivid  contemporaneous  accounts 


118  A  STUDY  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

of  their  heroes  and  kings.  A  flood  of  light  is 
thrown  upon  a  few  passages  flattering  to  their  na- 
tional pride  or  important  for  their  rehgious  belief; 
but  these  are  separated  from  each  other  by  broad 
gaps  in  which  darkness  reigns.  The  writers  evi- 
dently purpose  to  narrate  or  compile  only  what  was 
specially  interesting  to  their  countrymen,  or  what 
reflected  light  upon  their  institutions  and  confirmed 
their  faith.  But  these  very  faults  of  method,  this 
lack  of  order,  consecutiveness,  and  precision,  instead 
of  impeaching  the  correctness  of  the  narrative,  are 
proofs  of  its  antiquity,  and  vouchers  for  the  fidelity 
and  truthfulness  of  its  authors.  They  are  precisely 
what  we  ought  to  expect  in  genuine  memorials 
handed  down  to  us  from  the  early  morning  in  the 
history  of  the  world. 

The  ponderous  erudition  and  perverse  ingenuity 
of  professorial  German  critics  have  invented  any 
number  of  theories  respecting  the  genuineness,  and 
the  particular  periods  of  composition,  of  the  differ- 
ent fragmentary  materials  which  are  rudely  patched 
together  in  the  historical  Books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. No  two  of  these  hypotheses  resemble  each 
other ;  they  are  so  unlike  that  any  one  may  find  in 
the  heap  a  theory  to  his  mind ;  especially  as  each 
of  the  authors  of  them,  not  content  with  differing 
widely  from  the  others,  is  usually  much  at  variance 
with  himself  during  the  intervals  of  publication  of 


THE  HISTORY  CONTAINED  IN  TEE  BIBLE.    119 

his  book,  often  painfully  demolishing  in  the  second 
edition  the  very  hypothesis  which  he  had  elabo- 
rately set  forth  and  defended  in  the  former  issue. 
The  better  class  of  them  give  most  attention  to 
summing  up  the  labors  of  their  predecessors,  so  as 
to  make  it  appear,  for  instance,  that  the  genuineness 
and  early  date  of  a  certain  passage  are  stoutly  de- 
nied by  six  learned  critics,  and  quite  as  stoutly 
asserted  perhaps  by  eight  others  equally  erudite, 
the  compiler  of  these  statistics  seldom  failing  to 
slip  in  among  them  a  compromise  theory  of  his 
own.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  much  wisdom  is 
to  be  learned  from  these  critical  speculations,  and 
I  should  not  even  have  alluded  to  them  here  but  for 
one  consideration,  which  is,  that  most  of  the  ques- 
tions mooted  in  them,  and  of  the  arguments  offered 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other,  lie,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
very  surface  of  the  text,  and  can  be  studied  by  you 
just  as  well  in  your  English  Bible  as  under  the  guid- 
ance of  a  learned  German  professor,  be  he  even  a  De 
Wette  or  an  Ewald.  If  you  seek  English  help,  let 
me  recommend  to  you  Dr.  John  Quarry's  two  Dis- 
sertations on  Genesis  and  its  Authorship,  our  own 
Dr.  Stebbins's  "  Study  of  the  Pentateuch,"  and  sev- 
eral of  Dean  Stanley's  later  publications.  You  will 
find  these  works  distinguished  at  any  rate  for  sturdy 
English  common  sense  and  soundness  of  judgment, 
qualities  which  are  not  conspicuous  in  the  writings 


120  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

of  German  critics,  whose  erudition  appears  to  have 
been  heaped  up  by  the  shovel  rather  than  the  pen. 
The  Book  of  Genesis  appears  on  the  face  of  it  to 
be  a  collection  of  poems,  legends,  and  genealogies, 
which  had  been  handed  down  by  oral  tradition  from 
an  indefinite  antiquity,  and  which  it  is  tolerably 
certain  were  first  selected,  put  together,  and  reduced 
to  writing  in  the  Mosaic  age,  probably  under  the 
direction  of  Moses  himself,  aided  by  his  elder 
brother,  Aaron,  and  his  sons.  They  embody  the 
early  national  faith  of  the  Semitic  race  in  those  doc- 
trines of  spiritual  monotheism  and  a  Divine  Provi- 
dence as  manifested  in  the  government  of  men  on 
earth,  which  I  have  already  designated  as  the  patri- 
archal revelation.  I  see  no  way  of  accounting  for 
the  origin  of  so  pure  doctrine  in  so  rude  an  age  ex- 
cept through  a  divine  instinct  lodged  in  the  hearts 
and  consciences  of  men,  just  as  language  and  the 
use  of  fire  were  first  made  known  to  them  through 
a  corresponding  revelation  to  their  intellects.  The 
success  of  scholars  in  our  own  day  in  deciphering 
Egyptian  papyri  and  cuneiform  inscriptions  has 
proved,  beyond  all  doubt,  that  the  traditions  con- 
tained in  the  earlier  chapters  of  Genesis  respecting 
the  first  state  of  man  upon  the  earth  and  the  Del- 
uge were  originally  common  to  the  whole  Semitic 
race.  Only  with  the  story  of  Abraham  does  the 
distinctively  Hebraistic  portion  of  the  record  begin. 


THE  HISTORY  CONTAINED  IN  THE  BIBLE.      121 

111  the  Book  of  Exodus  we  find  the  earliest  con- 
temporaneous record  of  the  history  of  the  Jews  as  a 
distinct  people  and  the  development  in  the  desert  of 
their  peculiar  theocratic  institutions.  Here,  again, 
there  is  presented  to  us  a  somewhat  loose  aggregate 
of  all  sorts  of  historical  material  put  together  with- 
out any  attempt  at  systematic  arrangement,  the 
transitions  being  abrupt,  and  the  matter  left  un- 
finished at  the  close  of  one  chapter  being  suddenly 
resumed  several  chapters  farther  on.  The  Book 
opens  with  a  tolerably  complete  narrative  of  the 
means  b}'-  which  the  assent  of  Pharaoh  to  the  de- 
parture of  the  Israelites  was  at  last  obtained,  and 
of  the  consequent  exodus  of  the  whole  people  under 
the  guidance  of  Moses  and  Aaron,  of  their  passage 
through  the  Red  Sea,  together  with  the  destruction 
of  the  Egyptian  pursuing  army  them,  and  of  other 
incidents  in  their  journey  until  they  arrived  at  the 
foot  of  Mt.  Sinai.  This  is  followed  by  a  confused 
and  fragmentary  record  of  the  various  portions  of 
the  Mosaic  legislation,  as  they  were  successively 
communicated  to  the  people  with  a  claim  of  divine 
inspiration  and  authority  ;  and  by  an  account  of 
the  conduct  of  the  people  meanwhile,  during  their 
long  stay  at  Sinai,  preparing  for  their  expected  entry 
upon  the  promised  land.  The  statutes  are  assumed 
throughout  to  be  of  divine  origin  ;  they  are  an- 
nounced as  revelations  of  the  will  and  purpose  of 


122  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Jehovah,  under  the  prefatory  formula,  "  Thus  saith 
the  Lord,"  or  "  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  say- 
ing." Some  of  them,  especially  those  relating  to 
institutions  and  to  religious  rites  and  ceremonies, 
are  given  with  great  minuteness  of  detail ;  while 
others  are  recorded  only  in  general  and  vague  direc- 
tions. 

The  chief  personage  in  the  Book,  and  in  the  re- 
maining portions  of  the  Pentateuch,  around  whom 
the  interest  centres,  is  the  commanding  figure  of 
Moses,  who  is,  humanly  speaking,  the  great  deliv- 
erer, leader,  and  legislator  of  the  Hebrew  people. 
The  work  accomplished  by  him  has  no  parallel  in 
history.  No  other  legislator,  no  prophet,  priest,  or 
king,  ever  wrought  to  such  purpose,  or  with  so  last- 
ing efficienc}^,  as  he  did.  No  other  one's  work  ever 
lived  after  him  as  his  has  done.  The  institutions 
and  the  laws  of  Cyrus  the  Elder,  Solon,  Lycurgus, 
Numa,  Pythagoras,  and  a  host  of  others,  where  are 
they  ?  As  fleeting  contributions  to  the  world's  his- 
tory as  drops  of  fresh  and  pure  rain  falling  upon 
the  bosom  of  the  great  ocean,  they  have  been  swal- 
lowed up  in  it  and  lost,  without  having  in  the 
slightest  perceptible  degree  lessened  its  bitterness. 
Moses  lived  nearly  a  thousand  years  earlier  than 
the  oldest  of  them,  among  an  ignorant  and  despised 
people,  fugitives  then  and  fugitives  now  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth;  and  his  work  endured  and  still 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.    123 

endures,  and  we,  the  civilized  Christian  nations  of 
the  earth,  are  still  living  in  the  light  of  it,  uphold- 
ing some  of  his  institutions  and  professing  at  any 
rate  to  conform  our  lives  to  some  of  his  laws.  For 
if  they  were  not  the  institations  and  the  laws  of 
God,  which  I  am  not  permitted  now  to  assume, 
having  to  look  only  at  their  secular  aspect,  they 
were  at  any  rate,  if  historical  evidence  can  estab- 
lish anything,  first  announced  and  made  obligatory 
by  Moses  in  the  desert  from  the  top  of  Sinai.  Our 
Christian  Sunday  set  apart  as  a  day  of  rest  conse- 
crated unto  the  Lord,  and  still  observed,  as  it  al- 
ways has  been,  more  or  less  perfectly,  throughout 
Christendom,  is  only  the  Jewish  Sabbath  so  little 
modified  as  to  be  often  mistaken  for  it ;  and  that 
was  first  instituted  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness,  no 
trace  of  it  as  a  religious  observance  existing  before 
his  day.  The  Decalogue,  first  announced  by  him  as 
the  Law  of  God,  is  still  recognized  as  such  by  all 
civilized  nations,  is  still  taught  to  our  children,  is  still 
inscribed  in  thousands  of  churches,  so  as  to  be  con- 
stantly before  the  eyes  of  the  worshipper  in  a  form 
symbolizing  the  two  tables  of  stone  on  w^hich  it  was 
first  written  when  Moses  brought  it  down  from  the 
Mount.  What  other  work  of  man,  if  this  indeed 
be  man's  work,  has  been  as  lasting  and  efficient  as 
this  ? 

But  it  is  in  its  special  influence  on  the  Hebrew 


124  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

race,  for  whom,  as  God's  cliosen  people,  it  was  pri- 
marily and  exclusively  designed,  that  the  legislation 
of  Moses  has  most  clearly  shown  its  wisdom  and  its 
lasting  power.  He  formed  their  national  charac- 
ter; he  stamped  upon  them  those  peculiarities  of 
faith  and  practice  by  which  they  have  been  distin- 
guished from  his  day  to  ours.  The  Jews  as  we  now 
behold  them,  scattered  broadcast  among  the  nations, 
but  still  holding  themselves  apart  from  their  sur- 
roundings, refusing  to  mingle  with  the  Gentiles 
among  whom  they  have  been  compelled  to  make 
tlteir  temporary  home,  and  still  professing  the  faith 
of  Abraham  and  obedience  to  "  the  Book  of  the 
Law,"  —  the  Jews  as  they  are  now,  I  say,  and  as 
they  always  have  been,  bear  testimony  to  the  wis- 
dom and  the  thoroughness  with  which  their  great 
legislator  did  his  work.  He  formed  them  into  a 
church  and  a  state  unlike  anything  else  which  then 
existed  on  the  face  of  the  earth ;  he  determined  the 
main  features  of  their  polity  for  all  coming  time. 
The  Jews  are  to  this  day  what  Moses  made  them. 
For  the  mere  student  of  political  science,  of  the 
origin  of  government,  of  the  theory  of  legislation, 
and  of  the  determining  causes  of  national  character, 
I  know  of  no  study  more  instructive  and  fruitful 
than  that  of  the  history,  the  institutions,  and  the 
laws  of  the  Hebrew  people. 

Consider  for  a  moment  how  far  Moses  was  fitted 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS   OF  MOSES.     125 

for  his  great  undertaking  by  his  character,  his  train- 
ing, and  his  previous  life.  Adopted  as  an  infant 
foundling  by  Pharaoh's  daughter,  he  was  educated 
in  the  royal  household,  and  became  learned  in  all 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians.  Notwithstanding 
his  exceptional  position,  he  seems  to  have  been  in- 
tensely patriotic,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  not 
only  in  his  attachment  to  the  faith  of  Abraham, 
but  in  his  sympathies  with  his  unhappy  country- 
men, then  enslaved  under  cruel  taskmasters,  and  in 
a  more  feeble,  ignorant,  and  debased  condition  than 
are  now  the  Fellaheen  in  Egypt.  His  first  recorded 
act,  after  attaining  manhood,  was  killing  an  Egyp- 
tian whom  he  saw  maltreating  a  Hebrew.  To  es- 
cape punishment  for  this  deed,  he  was  compelled 
to  go  into  long  exile,  where  he  became  inured  to 
a  hardy  nomadic  life,  tending  in  the  desert  the 
flocks  of  Jethro,  his  father-in-law,  a  priest  of  Mid- 
ian.  His  wanderings  certainly  extended  to  Mount 
Horeb,  and  probably  even  to  the  borders  of  Canaan. 
The  knowledge  of  the  wilderness  thus  acquired 
made  him  subsequently  an  excellent  local  guide  to 
the  Israelites,  knowing  where  water  and  pasture 
could  be  had,  and  what  might  serve  even  for  the 
food  of  man  in  the  desert.  While  thus  employed 
at  Horeb,  there  came  to  him  what  he  deemed  his 
first  revelation,  the  word  of  God  to  his  strong  faith 
and  patriotic  soul,  saying,  "  I  have  surely  seen  the 


126  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

affliction  of  iny  people  which  are  in  Egypt,"  how 
they  sigh  by  reason  of  their  bondage.  "  Come  now 
therefore,  and  I  will  send  thee  unto  Pharaoh,  that 
thou  may  est  bring  forth  my  people,  the  children  of 
Israel,  out  of  Egypt,"  and  lead  them  into  a  good 
land,  the  land  of  their  forefathers,  Canaan,  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  He  had  many  doubts 
and  hesitations  about  obeying  what  he  naturally 
believed  to  be  a  divine  command ;  for  the  undertak- 
ing seemed  a  desperate  one,  on  account  both  of  the 
feebleness  of  the  Israelites  and  the  natural  unwill- 
ingness of  Pharaoh  to  set  free  so  large  a  body  of 
his  slaves.  These  fears  and  misgivings  are  faith- 
fully recorded,  and  thus  seem  to  vouch  for  the  gen- 
uineness of  the  narrative,  and  that  it  was  in  fact 
written  by  Moses  himself,  since  no  other  person 
could  have  known  what  was  then  his  state  of  mind, 
or  would  have  chronicled  what  seemed  discredita- 
ble to  the  leader  of  so  great  an  enterprise ;  but  he 
finally  conquered  his  timidity  and  reluctance,  and 
set  forth  on  the  noble  work,  in  which,  through  a 
thousand  perils  and  difficulties,  by  the  blessing  of 
God,  he  finally  succeeded.  The  exodus  was  accom- 
plished, and  the  people  conducted  in  safety  through 
the  Red  Sea  and  the  desert  till  they  reached  the 
foot  of  Sinai. 

Here  the  second  revelation,  still  more  imposing 
and  circumstantial  than  the  former  one,  came  unto 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.     127 

Moses.     Looking  at  the  record  of  it  in  its  merely- 
secular  aspect,  to  wliich  our  present  view  is  limited, 
I  find  no  difficulty  in  understanding  its  general  na- 
ture and  purport.     Moses  had  left  for  a  while  the 
care  and  direction  of  the  people  to  his  elder  brother, 
Aaron,  and  his  sons,  and  withdrawn  alone,  amid  the 
warfare  of  the  elements,  to  the  top  of  Sinai,  for  the 
purposes  of  meditation  upon  the  greatness  of  the 
task  which  still  lay  before  him,  and  of  silent  com- 
munion   with    his   God.      The   voice   which   there 
seemed  to  come  to  his  inward  ear  out  of  the  light- 
nings and  the  tempest,  as  he  had  formerly  heard  it 
from  the  burning   bush  at   Horeb,  seemed  to  say 
unto  him  virtaallv,  —  "  Take  this  feeble  band  of 
fugitives  as  they  are  now,  broken  in  spirit  and  cor- 
rupted in  morals  and  religion  by  their  long  servitude 
in  Egypt,  and  by  their  continued  familiarity  with 
the  idolatries  and  wickedness  of  the  people  there, 
and  make  them  a  great  and  strong  nation,  fearing 
the  Lord.     Kindle  in  their  hearts  anew  the  faith  of 
their  father  Abraham  ;   wean  them  from  the  wor- 
ship of  false  gods,  and  from  their  attachment  to  the 
fleshpots  of  Egypt ;   and  make  them  walk   in  the 
ways  of  righteousness.     Make  them  hardy  in  their 
habits  and  valiant  in   war,  so  that  they  may  be 
fitted  to  drive  out  or  exterminate  the  heathen  be- 
fore them,  and  to  take  possession  of  the  good  land 
which  was  promised  to  their  fathers.     Guard  them 


128  A  STUDY  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

especially  from  contact  or  intermarriage  with  the 
surrounding  nations,  so  that  they  may  be  preserved 
from  the  contagion  of  bad  example.  Isolate  them 
and  keep  them  pure,  and  my  blessing  shall  attend 
them."  This  is  the  command  which  that  strong 
and  courageous  soul  seemed  to  liear  in  the  mount; 
and  we  have  now  only  to  consider  the  wisdom  of  the 
means  which  were  proposed  for  its  accomplishment. 
On  coming  down  from  his  first  stay  on  the 
mount,  he  had  a  striking  and  melancholy  proof  how 
far  the  people  had  become  corrupted  and  esti'anged 
from  the  faith  of  their  fathers  through  their  long 
sojourn  in  one  place  and  their  consequent  familiar- 
ity with  Egyptian  life  and  the  idolatrous  forms  of 
Egyptian  worship.  They  had  induced  even  Aaron 
to  make  for  thena  such  an  idol,  that  of  a  calf,  as 
they  had  often  seen  worshipped  in  Egypt,  and  had 
bowed  down  before  it  in  adoration  as  their  deity. 
This  revolt  was  quickly  and  sternly  suppressed  ; 
but  it  seems  to  have  convinced  Moses  that  the  at- 
tempt to  enter  upon  and  possess  the  promised  land, 
driving  out  its  pagan  inhabitants  before  them,  must 
be  still  postponed  for  some  forty  years,  till  a  new 
generation  of  Israelites  should  have  arisen,  desert- 
born  and  desert-trained,  made  hardy  and  valiant 
by  the  habits  of  nomadic  life,  having  no  memo- 
ries of  the  blandishments  and  corruptions  of  life  in 
Egypt,   but  isolated    and  kept    pure   by   the  very 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES,      129 

nature  of  a  life  in  the  wilderness,  and  educated 
there  under  the  institutions  and  the  hiws  which  he 
was  to  announce  to  them  as  the  commands  of  Je- 
hovah. This  surely  was  the  idea,  the  forecast,  of  a 
great  statesman.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to  finish  the 
great  undertaking,  and  thus  to  secure  for  himself 
a  share  of  the  triumph  in  the  accomplished  work. 
With  noble  self-denial  he  told  the  people,  that  not 
till  after  his  death  must  they  attempt  to  cross  the 
Jordan,  and  "  little  by  little,"  as  he  assured  them, 
to  win  possession  of  Canaan.  In  fact,  the  conquest 
of  that  country,  even  of  Jerusalem  which  became 
its  capital  city,  was  not  fully  accomplished  till  Da- 
vid's time,  some  four  hundred  years  afterwards. 
Moses  knew  full  well  that  a  new  polity,  new  insti- 
tutions, new  laws,  and  a  revived  spiritual  religion 
could  not  be  made,  as  it  were,  to  spring  up  at  once 
out  of  the  earth,  but  must  have  time  to  grow  up 
slowly,  and  thus  to  become  inrooted  in  the  hearts 
and  habits  of  the  people.  Hence  the  persistency, 
the  abiding  character,  of  the  Mosaic  legislation. 
During  those  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  Moses 
made  the  Jews  what  they  were,  what  they  have 
been  during  these  many  centuries,  and  what  they 
are  such  as  we  behold  them  now;  —  a  peculiar  peo- 
ple, isolated  from  all  others  in  their  habits  and  con- 
victions, still  clinging  to  the  faith  of  Abraham  in 
the  unity  of  God  and  the  divine  government  of  the 


130  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

world,  and  still  hoping  for  a  return  to  the  promised 
land. 

Our  materials  for  forming  a  full  and  correct  idea 
of  what  the  institutions  of  Moses  were  are  confused 
and  incomplete,  as  might  have  been  expected  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  the  account  of  them  has  come 
down  to  us  from  so  remote  an  antiquity,  and  of  the 
changes  which  the  manuscript  must  have  under- 
gone in  the  successive  transcriptions  of  it  during 
the  many  centuries  before  the  comparatively  mod- 
ern idea  of  the  sacredness  of  the  text,  and  the  great 
importance  of  preserving  it  inviolate,  had  as  yet 
dawned  upon  the  minds  of  the  transcribers.  Schol- 
ars tell  us  that  none  of  the  manuscripts  of  the  He- 
brew text  now  extant  are  older  than  the  eleventh 
century  of  our  era,  and  that  all  of  these  are  marvel- 
lously consistent  with  each  other,  the  various  read- 
ings to  be  detected  in  them  being  few  and  unim- 
portant. But  granting  even  what  perhaps  we  have 
no  full  right  to  assume,  that  these  manuscripts  cor- 
rectly show  what  the  text  was  as  early  as  the  be- 
ginning of  our  era,  it  is  certain  that  it  underwent 
man}^  and  signal  changes  during  fourteen  centuries 
before  that  date ;  for  on  comparing  it  with  two  in- 
dependent standards,  the  Samaritan  Pentateuch 
and  the  Greek  translation  of  tlie  Septuagint,  the 
discrepancies  found  are  numerous  and  some  of  them 
of  considerable  significance.     Some  of  the  priestly 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.      131 

copyists  evidently  had  their  own  ideas  as  to  what 
really  was  the  word  of  the  Lord  as  delivered  unto 
Moses;  and  hence  they  made  interpolations  and 
other  changes  with  ranch  freedom.  A  translitera- 
tion must  have  taken  place  when  the  Chaldee  or 
square  character  was  substituted  for  the  earlier 
Phoenician  alphabet ;  and  this  cause  alone  must 
have  induced  many  changes  of  the  text  through  mis- 
taking one  letter  for  another,  especially  when  nu- 
merals were  concerned.  Similar  errors  were  prob- 
ably committed  when  the  vowel  points  were  first 
introduced  into  the  manuscripts,  the  Hebrew  hav- 
ing then  already,  and  long  before,  passed  out  of  use 
as  a  living  and  spoken  language.  Hence  minute 
criticisms  upon  the  details  of  the  record,  upon  iso- 
lated statements  in  it  found  here  and  there  in  single 
verses  or  fragments  of  a  verse,  are  singularly  mis- 
leading and  out  of  place.  These  concern  at  the  ut- 
most the  state  of  preservation  of  the  text  through 
the  man}^  casualties  to  which  it  was  exposed  while 
coming  down  to  us  from  so  remote  an  age.  They 
do  not  at  all  affect  the  correctness  of  the  narrative 
taken  as  a  whole,  or  the  authenticity  of  the  broad 
features  of  that  revelation  which  it  purports  to  re- 
cord. It  is  only  by  looking  away  from  the  details  of 
the  account  to  its  general  and  leading  characteris- 
tics, that  we  can  gain  any  correct  idea  of  the  Mo- 
saic legislation. 


132  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

The  S3^stem  of  government  which  Moses  first  set 
up  did  not  recognize  either  the  elective  or  the  he- 
reditary principle  as  its  basis,  though  the  latter 
was  partially  admitted  in  determining  the  succes- 
sion to  the  priestly  office.  The  system  was  the- 
ocratic throughout.  The  Lord  was  the  only  ruler ; 
Jehovah  alone  was  king.  Moses  claimed  no  rank  or 
title,  demanded  no  observance,  assumed  no  author- 
ity as  for  himself,  but  always  appears  only  as  the 
mouthpiece  through  whom  the  God  of  their  fathers 
spake  to  the  people.  He  was  simply  a  prophet,  not 
a  priest,  not  a  ruler,  not  even  a  magistrate ;  for 
though  he  "judged  the  people,"  that  is,  settled  dis- 
putes among  the  tribes,  or  between  man  and  man, 
he  did  so  only  as  the  organ  and  mouthpiece  of  the 
power  above  that  really  dictated  the  decision.  Al- 
readj^  by  the  advice  of  Jethro,  his  father-in-law, 
who  came  to  meet  him  in  the  wilderness,  he  had 
appointed  subordinate  judges,  to  aid  him  in  thus 
settling  disputes  among  the  people.  He  chose  *'  out 
of  all  the  people  able  men,  such  as  feared  God,  men 
of  truth,  hating  covetousness."  These,  as  Jethro 
said,  were  to  "judge  the  people  at  all  seasons." 
"  Every  great  matter  they  shall  bring  unto  thee ; 
but  every  small  matter  they  shall  judge."  And 
this  distinctive  function  also  was  assigned  to  Moses 
himself:  —  "  Thou  shalt  teach  them  ordinances  and 
laws,  and  shalt  show  them  the  way  wherein  they 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.     133 

must  walk,  and  the  work  that  they  must  do." 
The  whole  scheme  of  government,  then,  both  the  or- 
dinances and  laws,  and  the  selection  of  the  men  by 
whom  these  were  to  be  administered,  emanated  di- 
rectly from  Jehovah  speaking  through  the  mouth 
of  Moses.  In  this  way,  too,  the  succession  to  the 
leadership  of  the  people,  after  the  death  of  him  who 
was,  humanly  speaking,  their  great  deliverer,  guide, 
legislator,  and  judge,  was  to  be  provided  for  ;  —  not 
through  election  by  the  people ;  not  by  hereditary 
descent,  so  as  to  pass  to  the  children  of  Moses; 
but  by  the  favor  of  the  Lord  attending  all  the  en- 
terprises, and  crowning  with  success  all  the  under- 
takings, of  the  valiant  and  righteous  man,  who,  in- 
spired by  Jehovah,  should  step  forward  to  assume 
the  vacant  place.  This  was  the  promise  made  unto 
them  by  their  great  leader  in  his  last  speech  to  Is- 
rael preparatory  to  his  own  death.  "The  Lord  thy 
God  will  raise  up  unto  thee  a  Prophet  from  the 
midst  of  thee,  of  thy  brethren,  like  unto  me  ;  unto 
him  ye  shall  hearken."  And  this  promise  was 
kept ;  a  succession  of  valiant  and  righteous  men, 
Joshua,  Gideon,  Jephthah,  Samuel,  did  come  for- 
ward, and  sat  in  Moses'  seat,  and  became  judges  of 
Israel. 

This  Hebrew  polity,  together  with  the  ordinances 
and  laws  to  be  observed  by  the  people  wliicli  accom- 
panied it,  was  evidently  based  upon  the  great  under- 


134  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

lying  truth  already  adverted  to,  that  God  directly 
and  immediately  governs  the  life  that  now  is,  over- 
ruling and  disposing  all  events  in  it  so  as  to  justify 
and  confirm  the  law  of  righteousness.  "  This  do 
and  thou  shalt  live  "  is  the  oft-repeated  injunction. 
"  All  these  blessings  shall  come  on  thee  and  over- 
take thee,  if  thou  shalt  hearken  unto  the  voice  of 
the  Lord  thy  God."  "But  if  ye  will  not  do  so, 
behold,  ye  have  sinned  against  the  Lord ;  and  be 
sure  your  sin  will  find  you  out."  Under  this  grand 
sanction  the  Decalogue  was  proclaimed  from  Mt. 
Sinai  and  engraved  upon  tables  of  stone  ;  and  the 
many  supplementary  injunctions  to  be  merciful  to 
the  poor  and  the  stranger,  to  the  widow  and  the 
fatherless,  and  to  do  justice  even  to  an  eiiemj^, 
were  added.  What  we  are  first  concerned  to  notice 
in  these  ordinances  is  this  pure  and  beautiful  moral- 
ity which  they  thus  inculcate,  so  unlike  what  could 
reasonably  be  expected  in  that  remote  age,  amid 
those  desert  surroundings,  and  addressed  to  a  peo- 
ple just  rescued  from  debasing  servitude,  while  the 
nations  around  them  were  still  sunk  in  the  vilest 
corruption  and  wickedness.  In  his  conception  of 
what  constitutes  holiness  unto  the  Lord,  Moses  has 
not  been  surpassed  by  any  moralist  or  legislator  of 
ancient  or  modern  times.  His  is  still  the  law  to 
which  every  Cliristian  man  of  culture  and  refine- 
ment assumes  to  conform  his  conduct  and  life,  even 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS   OF  MOSES.      135 

at  this  late  day.     In  this  respect,  all  of  us  are,  or 
ought  to  be,  disciples  of  Moses. 

In  marking  out  a  broad  scheme  of  polity  and  life 
for  his  people,  at  once  comprehensive  and  minute  in 
its  details,  Moses  seems  to  have  attributed  the  chief 
importance  to  his  institution  of  the  Sabbath,  repeat- 
ing the  injunction  again  and  again  in  earnest  and 
solemn  words,  as  if  he  would  fain  make  it  more  im- 
pressive and  binding  by  repetition.  Its  nature  and 
the  plan  for  its  observance  were  simple  enough. 
Each  seventh  day  was  to  be  a  period  of  absolute 
rest  both  for  man  and  beast,  "  holy  unto  the 
Lord ;  "  — that  is,  observed  from  a  religious  motive, 
or  as  a  sacred  duty.  No  special  act  or  ceremony 
was  required  to  be  then  performed.  Merely,  "  in 
it  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work,  thou,  nor  thy  son, 
nor  thy  daughter,  thy  man-servant  nor  thy  maid- 
servant, nor  tliy  cattle,  nor  the  stranger  that  is 
within  thy  gates."  This  was  inserted  in  the  Deca- 
logue, and  is  the  only  positive  institution  so  placed, 
the  nine  other  Commandments  being  moral  and  re- 
ligious injunctions  of  natural  and  universal  obliga- 
tion. And  the  penalty  by  which  this  observance 
was  enforced  was  stern  enough :  "  whosoever  doeth 
any  work  therein,  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from 
among  his  people  ;  "  "  he  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death."  As  already  remarked,  tlie  institution  then 
and  there  enjoined  has  been  adopted  in  its  main 


136  A  STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

features  by  cultured  and  enlightened  Christendom. 
Imperfectly  observed  though  it  be,  it  has  become  a 
badge  and  safeguard  of  modern  civilization.  With- 
out a  fixed  period  of  emancipation  from  the  other- 
wise constantly  recurring  pressure  of  animal  v^ants 
and  bodily  toil,  man  gradually  loses  the  capacity  of 
continuous  reflection  and  a  truly  spiritual  life.  Un- 
der the  hardening  influence  of  habit,  accustomed 
only  to  low  aims  and  purely  mechanical  pursuits,  he 
becomes  degraded  in  the  scale  of  being.  He  is  no 
longer  capable  of  acting  from  a  sense  of  duty  or  of 
communing  with  himself,  but  sinks  into  a  dreary 
routine  of  sensual  enjoyments  and  purely  physical 
exertions  which  would  scarcely  tax  the  energies  of 
a  brute.  The  Mosaic  institution  of  the  Sabbath,  or 
a  modification  of  it,  gives  him  a  period  of  enforced 
leisure  for  pure  thought,  and  thus  opens  a  door  for 
honorable  ambition  and  virtuous  effort. 

Three  annual  festivals,  each  of  them  covering  a 
period  of  seven  or  eight  days,  and  having  its  own 
peculiar  rites  and  observances,  together  with  the 
Sabbatical  year  and  the  year  of  Jubilee,  were  added 
by  Moses  to  his  institution  of  the  Sabbath.  The 
idea  was  the  same  throughout,  frequently  to  remind 
the  people  through  these  recurrent  holy-days  or  holi- 
days, that  there  was  a  service  to  be  performed  for 
the  wants  of  the  spirit,  as  well  as  for  those  of  the 
body ;  that  over  and  above  their  secular  cares  and 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS   OF  MOSES.      137 

the  labor  required  to  satisfy  their  merely  animal 
needs,  the}^  owed  a  dut}^  to  the  government  under 
which  they  lived,  a  duty  of  allegiance  to  the  God 
of  their  fathers  who  had  rescued  them  from  servi- 
tude, fed  them  in  the  desert,  and  brought  them  to 
the  borders  of  the  promised  land.  Church  and 
state  being  blended  into  one  in  their  theocracy,  pa- 
triotism was  identified  with  religious  obligation,  so 
that  the  observance  of  these  festivals  corresponded 
to  the  military  service  and  other  duties  imposed  by 
modern  comaiunities  on  all  their  citizens.  Two  of 
tbese  annual  feasts,  the  Passover  and  the  Feast  of 
Tabernacles,  were  strictly  commemorative  in  char- 
acter, and  the  special  rites  and  acts  with  which 
they  were  celebrated  served  to  perpetuate  the  peo- 
ple's memory  of  the  great  events  in  their  early  na- 
tional history.  To  us  in  tbese  modern  days  they 
are  interesting,  as  the  traditional  observance  of 
them,  coming  down  from  so  remote  an  antiquity, 
is  a  complete  voucher  for  the  authenticity  of  the 
written  narrative  of  those  events. 

We  are  thus  brought  to  the  general  question,  the 
last  one  which  I  shall  have  to  consider ;  namely,  of 
what  use  is  this  broad  and  complex  system  of  ex- 
ternal religious  acts,  that  is,  of  rites  and  ceremonies, 
which  was  constituted  by  the  Levitical  law,  this 
body  of  ritualism  more  comprehensive  and  minute 
than  is  found  in  any  other  religion  under  the  sun  ? 


188  A   STUDY  OF  THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Since  God  is  a  spirit,  and  those  who  worship  him 
must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  why  en- 
join any  pious  observance  beyond  that  of  the  silent 
internal  communion  of  the  soul  with  itself  and  with 
its  Maker,  and  that  of  the  virtuous  life  to  which 
such  pious  meditation  points,  and  which,  if  continu- 
ous or  sufficiently  frequent,  it  would  surely  pro- 
duce ?  Of  what  real  use  or  significance  in  pure  re- 
ligion is  an  external  rite,  a  mere  ceremony?  In 
all  frankness  I  answer,  that  if  men  were  angels  or 
pure  disembodied  spirits,  it  would  be  of  no  use 
whatever ;  and  therefore,  in  the  future  life,  in  the 
spiritual  state  of  being  which  awaits  us  beyond  the 
grave,  I  don't  believe  there  will  be  any  fixed  obser- 
vances, for  we  shall  not  need  them.  But  while  on 
this  earth,  man  is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  The  con- 
stantly recurring  wants  of  the  body,  the  necessity 
of  providing  for  its  material  support,  make  us  de- 
pendent upon  the  senses,  and  upon  the  relations  of 
the  senses  to  external  material  things.  Even  the 
imagination  is  only  a  duplication  of  the  sense,  since 
we  can  imagine  only  what  is  sensible,  particular, 
and  concrete.  In  short,  man  is  a  compound,  a  dual 
being ;  on  the  one  side,  an  animal,  formed  from 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  subject  to  all  the  limi- 
tations and  defects,  all  the  passions  and  appetites, 
of  an  animal ;  on  the  other  side,  he  is  a  spirit,  cre- 
ated, not  formed,  when  his  Maker  breathed  into  his 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS   OF  MOSES.      139 

nostrils  the  breath  of  life,  so  that  he  "  became  a  liv- 
ing soul.^^  Hence  the  necessity  imposed  upon  us  of 
leading  a  dual  life ;  if  either  side  of  human  nature 
is  exclusively  developed  and  fostered,  the  other  is 
famished  and  dies  out,  and  one  becomes  at  best  but 
half  a  man.  If  enslaved  altogether  to  flesh  and 
sense,  he  is  a  mere  brute ;  if  he  tries  to  refine  and 
sublimate  his  life  into  pure  spirit,  he  becomes  un- 
fitted for  the  duties  of  this  world,  and  might  as  well 
pass  out  of  it  altogether.  A  monk  shut  up  all  the 
time  in  his  cell,  a  Simeon  Stylites  wearying  out  ex- 
istence on  the  top  of  a  column,  though  incessantly 
occupied  with  pious  meditations,  are  useless  and 
worthless  beings. 

It  is  no  paradox,  then,  to  afiirm  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  Moses  taught  his  people  a  purely  spiritual 
religion,  and  strictly  forbade  "  any  similitude,"  any 
form  of  idolatry,  in  the  same  proportion  he  saw  it 
was  necessary  to  fence  round  this  revived  faith  with 
ceremonies  and  external  forms,  or  it  would  speedily 
die  out,  and  Israel  would  lapse  again  into  the  wor- 
ship of  a  golden  calf.  The  polytheism  of  Egypt, 
of  Greece  and  Rome,  surrounded  man  with  visible 
and  tangible  objects  of  worship,  with  images  and 
statues,  with  temples,  altars,  sacrifices,  and  victims. 
Gods  were  placed  everywhere,  in  every  fountain, 
grove,  and  stream,  in  each  of  the  heavenly  bodies, 
and  in  each  individual  tree  of  an  oak  forest.     The 


140  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

very  air  was  thick  with  deities.  The  faith  of  Moses 
swept  away  this  whole  complex  apparatus  as  gross, 
heathenish,  and  idolatrous.  But  if  he  had  stopped 
there,  leaving  only  the  bodiless  worship  of  one  God 
as  pure  spirit,  leaving  nothing  for  sense  and  imagi- 
nation to  feed  upon,  he  would  have  reduced  religion 
to  an  abstract  idea ;  and  this,  with  the  rude  and  un- 
lettered people  whom  he  had  led  into  the  wilder- 
ness, would  not,  humanly  speaking,  have  survived 
the  second  generation.  He  showed  the  wisdom  of 
a  statesman,  if  not  the  inspiration  of  a  saint,  by 
building  up  the '  elaborate  and  imposing  scheme  of 
Hebrew  ritualism,  which  was  not  idolatrous,  be- 
cause each  rite  and  ceremony  was  expressly  held  to 
be  merely  commemorative  or  symbolical.  Nothing 
outward  was  worshipped,  but  the  inward  meaning 
of  each  observance  was  the  spiritual  recognition  and 
adoration  of  the  one  true  God. 

The  wisdom  of  the  Mosaic  institution  has  been 
proved  and  illustrated  in  these  modern  times  by  the 
varying  fortunes  of  the  several  churches  and  de- 
nominations which  have  been  developed  out  of  the 
great  Reform  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
The  early  Reformers,  in  their  eagerness  to  depart  as 
far  as  possible  from  Rome,  made  a  great  mistake  in 
their  excessive  iconoclasm.  The  Puritans  threw 
down  not  only  the  images  of  the  saints,  but  every 
cross  and  crucifix ;  they  dispersed  the  choirs,  broke 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.      141 

the  painted  windows,  took  down  the  two  tables  of 
the  Law,  upset  the  font,  put  a  pine  table  in  place 
of  the  altar,  and  reduced  the  public  worship  of  God 
to  extemporaneous  prayer,  the  rudest  psalm  sing- 
ing, and  a  sermon  of  fearful  length  and  aridity. 
They  did  their  best  to  strip  religion  bare  of  all 
external  apparel,  and  reduce  it  to  pure  thought,  to 
an  abstract  idea.  They  proscribed  the  observance 
even  of  the  two  great  festivals  of  the  Church, 
Christmas  and  Easter,  substituting  Thanksgiving 
for  the  one  and  Fast-day  for  the  other,  —  two  insti- 
tutions which,  as  they  commemorate  nothing  and 
symbolize  nothing  save  two  religious  states  of  mind, 
gratitude  and  penitence,  have  in  themselves  no  root 
of  permanence,  but  are  conventional  and  temporary. 
One  of  them  is  practically  dead  already,  and  the 
other  is  moribund.  The  inevitable  result  followed, 
weariness  and  indifference  creeping  in  when  men 
found  that  the  only  public  worship  of  God  con- 
sisted in  going  to  meeting  on  Sunday,  and  listening 
to  a  sermon  which  too  frequently  degenerated  into 
a  sensational  lyceum  lecture.  The  state  of  mind 
thus  induced  is  set  forth  with  much  liveliness  by 
Wordsworth  in  his  half-heathenish  sonnet,  wherein 
he  exclaims,  — 

"It  moves  us  not.  —  Great  God  !     I 'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn  ; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 


142  A  STUDY  OF  THE   ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea; 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

But  within  our  own  day,  a  reaction  from  this  ex- 
cessive iconoclasm  has  been  produced,  and  the  tide 
now  sets  strongly  towards  those  "fair  humanities 
of  old  religion  "  which  have  always  constituted  the 
strength  of  the  Mother  Church.  In  the  Anglican 
church  we  have  witnessed  a  convulsive  outburst  of 
Ritualism,  which  seems  to  out-Herod  Herod  by  aim- 
ing not  merely  to  equal,  but  to  surpass,  Romanism 
in  the  gorgeous  display  of  external  forms  and  ordi- 
nances. And  in  denominations  of  Puritan,  and 
even  of  Unitarian,  parentage,  a  corresponding  move- 
ment is  going  on.  Elaborate  choral  services  and 
responsive  readings  are  introduced ;  the  visible  sign 
of  the  cross  appears  both  without  and  within. 
Painted  windows  again  cast  a  "  dim  religious  light," 
sometimes  through  the  colored  forms  of  saints  and 
martyrs  ;  the  two  tables  of  the  Law  are  again  hung 
up  in  sight  of  the  congregation.  Prayers  are  simul- 
taneously uttered  from  pew  and  pulpit.  And  our 
"  meeting-houses  "  are  again  dressed  with  evergreen 
at  Christmas,  and  with  flowers  at  Easter.  I  almost 
anticipate  the  time  when  our  churches  will  be  open 
during  the  week,  as  well  as  on  Sunday,  so  that,  at 
any  hour,  the  solitary  penitent  may  enter  to  kneel 
and  pray  before  the  visible  symbols  of  the  Body 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.      143 

and  Blood  of  Christ.  Think  what  we  may  of  this 
revival,  it  springs  from  a  real  want,  a  craving,  of 
our  common  nature,  which  cannot  be  withstood; 
and  it  manifests  at  this  late  day  the  wisdom  or  the 
inspiration  of  Moses,  call  it  which  you  please,  in 
ordaining  rich  and  complex  rites  and  ceremonies 
for  observance  by  the  Hebrew  people. 

I  hoped  to  add  some  farther  consideration  of  the 
history  and  the  institutions  of  the  Hebrew  people, 
as  these  are  set  forth  in  our  English  Bible,  and 
especially  of  the  lives  and  characters  of  their  great 
kings  and  prophets.  But  time  and  opportunity 
were  wanting,  and  this  portion  of  the  subject  must 
remain  for  treatment  by  another  hand  and  on  some 
future  occasion.  In  view,  however,  merely  of  what 
has  been  said,  however  imperfectly,  of  the  external 
merits  of  our  Common  Version,  and  of  the  nar- 
ratives, the  poetry,  and  the  philosophy  which  are 
set  forth  in  it,  it  is  for  the  student  to  determine 
whether  any  system  of  liberal  education  can  be  re- 
garded as  complete  and  generous  which  does  not 
include  thorough  study  of  this  great  body  of  He- 
brew and  Christian  literature.  My  own  strong  con- 
viction is,  that  the  only  hope  for  the  civilization 
and  the  happiness  of  the  generations  that  are  to 
come  in  this  English-speaking  world  depends  on 
the  continued  reverent  study  of  the  English  Bible. 
Especially  is  this  true  in  regard  to  those  few  great 


144  A  STUDY  OF   THE  ENGLISH  BIBLE. 

doctrines,  those  underlying  truths,  so  simply  and 
briefly  expressed,  which  I  have  ventured  to  call  the 
philosophy  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  Scriptures. 
For,  know  it  well,  the  only  choice  for  us,  in  this 
piping  nineteenth  century,  lies  between  this  old 
philosophy  of  the  Hebrews  and  the  philosophy  of 
despair,  the  pessimism  of  Hartmann  and  Schopen- 
hauer. I  know  it  is  said  by  those  who  deprecate 
any  such  regard  for  the  consequences  of  our  opin- 
ions, that  we  have  only  to  follow  out  loyally  our 
own  doubts  or  convictions,  be  they  what  they  may, 
since  the  interests  of  truth  are  paramount.  But 
they  misconstrue  their  own  adage.  We  hold  as 
firmly  as  they  do,  that  the  truth  can  do  no  harm  ; 
and  it  is  just  because  the  acceptance  of  their  doc- 
trine does,  and  will  do,  immeasurable  harm  to  the 
best  interests  of  humanity,  that  we  are  firmly  con- 
vinced their  doctrine  is  not  the  truth.  For,  either 
the  one  God,  father  of  all,  the  God  alike  of  Jew, 
Christian,  and  Mahometan,  still  lives  and  reigns 
enthroned  above  all  height,  still  moves  and  governs 
the  universe  which  he  created,  or  there  comes  a 
wail  of  never  dying  sorrow  from  an  orphan  world 
and  a  dead  eternity,  a  pitiable  cry  which  declares 
existence  to  be  a  burden  and  a  wrong,  and  bids 
us  eat,  drink,  and  rot,  for  to-morrow  we  sleep  and 
never  wake  again.  Atheism  and  pessimism  are  as 
naturally  and  closely  related  to  each  other  as  Sin 


CHARACTER  AND  INSTITUTIONS  OF  MOSES.      145 

and  Death,  whom  Milton's  sublime  allegory  repre- 
sents as  keeping  guard  at  the  gates  of  hell  over 

"  The  secrets  of  the  hoary  deep,  a  dark 
Illimitable  ocean,  without  bound, 

Without  dimension,  where  length,  breadth,  and  heighth, 
And  time  and  place,  are  lost;  where  eldest  Night 
And  Chaos,  ancestors  of  Nature,  hold 
Eternal  anarchy  amidst  the  noise 
Of  endless  wars,  and  by  confusion  stand : 
For  hot,  cold,  moist,  and  dry,  four  champions  fierce, 
Strive  here  for  mastery,  and  to  battel  bring 
Their  embryon  atoms." 

Whether,  out  of  such  a  Chaos,  these  "  embryon 
atoms "  could  of  themselves,  unguided  by  any  or- 
ganizing mind,  have  evolved  and  maintained  a  uni- 
verse in  which  law  and  order,  intellect  and  con- 
science, appear  and  reign,  is  a  question  which  will 
hardly  be  of  doubtful  decision  by  any  competent 
thinker.  Science  herself  tells  us  that  they  could 
thus  only  perpetuate  Night  and  Chaos,  since  noth- 
ing could  be  evolved  out  of  atoms  which  was  not 
previously  involved  in  them. 


DATE  DUE 

AMPf^m^g 

^•« 

; 

■.^^i  'tiVwS:^M&?^'! 

& 

*>>-« 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  INU.S.A. 

BS535 .B78 

A  laymen's  study  of  the  English  Bible 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


V 

Engfish  B 


1    1012  00038  2707 


